UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON
GREEN CHEMISTRY NEWSLETTER
Issue 1
July 2014
The Green Chemistry Track in the Chemistry PhD Program at UMass Boston was established in 2002. It is the first
such program in the world. Students obtaining a degree from this program will be prepared for conventional chemistry
jobs in industry, government and academia. Green chemistry involves an ecologically sustainable view of chemical
research, development, and manufacture. Toxicological understanding and environmental fate are necessary
components to understanding the entire "molecular life cycle" of any commercial endeavor. The unique complement of
chemistry, EEOS and biology department faculty has allowed the University of Massachusetts Boston to create such a
program.
http://www.umb.edu/greenchemistry
News
Recent Publications
2014 SCI Perkin Medal Award winner Dr. John C. Warner has
designated UMass Boston Green Chemistry PhD program to be
the recipient of a $5,000 graduate scholarship.
PhD student Xin Huang is selected as 2014 NSF scholar to
attend the 18th annual Green Chemistry & Green Engineering
Conference this June at Bethesda, Maryland.
Prof. Zhang was recently appointed as the coeditor-in-chief for a
new journal, Current Green Chemistry. This journal will be
launched by Bentham Science Publishers in 2014.
Solan, A.; Nisanci, B.; Belcher, M.; Young, J.; Schäfer,
C.; Wheeler, K. A.; Török, B.; Dembinski, R. “Catalyst-free
chemo-/regio-/stereo-selective amination of alk-3-ynones.
Synthesis of 1,5-benzodiazepines and 3-amino-2-alkenones.”
Green Chem.,2014, 16, 1120-1124
Zhao, H.C.; Mello, B.; Fu, B.-L.; Chowdhury, H.; Szalda,
D.J.; Tsai, M.-K.; Grills, D.C.; Rochford, J. "An
investigation of monomeric versus dimeric fac-Re(I)
tricarbonyl systems containing the non-innocent 8oxyquinolate ligand.” Organometallics. 2013, 32, 1832-1841
The UMass Boston ACS Chapter, advised by Professor Jonathan
Rochford, was certified for the Green Chemistry ACS Student
Chapter.
Huang, Y.; Zhang, W. “Magnetic nanoparticle-supported
organocatalysis.” Green Process. Synth. 2013, 2, 603-609.
The research article “Comparative Performance Evaluation and
Systematic Screening of Solvents in a Range of Grignard
Reactions,” published by Prof. Wei Zhang’s group, is selected
as a "hot paper" by Green Chemistry.
Yi, W.-B.; Zhang, Z.; Huang, X.; Tanner, A.; Cai, C.; Zhang,
W. “One-pot Fluorination and Asymmetric Michael Addition
Promoted by Recyclable Fluorous Organocatalyst.” RSC
Advances. 2013, 3, 18267-18270.
Professors Berkeley Cue and Wei Zhang have been appointed to
the Drug Discovery and Therapy World Congress 2014
International Advisory Board.
Prof. Jonathan Rochford received an NSF grant “SusChEM:
Solar CO2 Reduction (SCO2RE) with Non-Innocent Ligand
Transition Metal Photocatalysts”
Prof. Berkeley Cue received a 2013 Environmental Merit Award
from U.S. EPA Region 1. Dr. Nicholas Anastas, leader of EPA’s
New England Green Chemistry Initiative, presented the award
to Professor Cue on June 26, 2013.
Kadam, A.; Bellinger, S.; Zhang, W. “Atom- and StepEconomic Synthesis of Biaryl Substituted Furocoumarins,
Furoquinolones and Furopyrimidines by Multicomponent
Reactions and One-Pot Synthesis.” Green Process. Synth.
2013, 2, 491-497.
Huang, X.; Yi, W.-B.; Ahad, D.; Zhang, W. “Recyclable
Cinchona Alkaloid-Catalyzed Asymmetric Michael Addition
Reaction.” Tetrahedron Lett. 2013, 54, 6064-6066.
Kadam, A.; Nguyen, M.; Kopach, M.; Richardson, P.;
Gallou, F.; Wan, Z.-K.; Zhang, W. “Comparative
Performance Evaluation and Systematic Screening of
Solvents in a Range of Grignard Reactions.” Green
Chemistry. 2013, 15, 1880-1888.
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Leaders in Green
Chemistry
Berkeley “Buzz” Cue
Dr. Cue consults for pharmaceutical and
technology companies through BWC Pharma
Consulting, LLC. While he was at Pfizer he was
responsible for Pharmaceutical Sciences at the
Groton, Connecticut R&D center. He was a
member of the site leadership team and the
Global Pharmaceutical Sciences Executive Team.
He created and led Pfizer's worldwide green
chemistry efforts until he retired, after almost 29
years. From 2004, he was first a governing board
member then the chair of the governing board of
the ACS Green Chemistry Institute, where he
helped found and lead their Pharmaceutical
Roundtable. He also was an advisor and
founding member of the Green Chemistry and
Commerce Council (GC3). He has given over 150
presentations
on
green
chemistry
and
sustainability, published nearly two dozen peer
reviewed articles and holds almost twenty
patents. With Professor Wei Zhang at UMassBoston he edited a green chemistry text, “Green
Techniques for Organic Synthesis and Medicinal
Chemistry, published by Wiley in June, 2012. At U
Mass-Boston he is an adjunct professor in the
chemistry department, a member of advisory
boards for their College of Science and
Mathematics and their Center for Sustainable
Enterprise and Regional Competiveness (SERC).
In 2011 he was appointed a Fellow of the
American Chemical Society and received a Green
Chemistry Champions Award from the GC3. He is
a member of the AAPS, ACS, ISPE and New
England Association of Chemistry Teachers
(NEACT).
Become a Green
Chemist
Undergraduate Opportunity
Are you an undergraduate student of
Chemistry of biochemistry who is looking
to get more involved on campus and
network with colleagues and faculty?
Enrich your academic career by becoming
a member of UMass Boston American
Chemical Society Student Chapter.
For more information visit:
http://www.umb.edu/academics/csm/ch
emistry/beyond_the_classroom/acs
Graduate Opportunity
If you are interested in an innovative and
exciting career in science, then the Green
Chemistry Track in the Chemistry PhD
program is a perfect opportunity for you. As
the world moves to focus on sustainability
in both an environmental and lab setting
more job opportunities arise within
industry, government and academia.
For more information visit:
http://www.umb.edu/academics/csm/ch
emistry
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Green Chemistry
Principle #1
Prevention
The first principle of green chemistry is prevention. It is
better to prevent waste rather than treating or cleaning up the
waste after creating it. Waste in the lab includes used solvents,
unwanted chemicals after experiments are over and other
reagents which are intended to be discarded. A chemist who is
not careful may dump solvents and solutions down the sink,
outside somewhere or may just leave them lying around the lab.
Chemicals are often left sitting around or thrown into the trash.
These mistakes can all lead to environmental pollution, not to
mention pollution in the air of the lab which can travel
throughout the university or workplace. Limiting the amount of
waste to be eliminated in the first place can decrease many of
these hazardous situations.
Chemists should always understand the reactions that
they are executing so that they can make improvements such as
using less toxic solvents, re-using solvents when possible, and redesign compound synthesis in order to avoid certain hazardous
reactions and conditions. Although this is much easier said than
done, there are many chemists that specialize in eliminating
waste in these ways which are available at universities and in the
industry. Doing experiments on a smaller scale when possible
and neutralizing acid and base waste are also steps which can be
taken to reduce and deal with waste
In the chemical industry and also in research settings,
whether there is focus on prevention or not, the fact remains that
waste is always being generated and therefore must be dealt with
accordingly. In industries such as pharmaceuticals, where a lot of
chemical reactions are taking place and therefore waste is
produced, there are many ways to measure this production, two
of the more popular ways are by use of E-Factor (also known as
atom economy or atom efficiency) and Mass Intensity. The EFactor shows the relation between the weight of waste materials
and the weight of the product, which can tell you a lot about the
efficiency of this reaction by examining this ratio. Recently, the
ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable,
founded and chaired by Dr. Berkeley Cue, described the process
of mass intensity, which expresses a ratio of the weights of all
materials used (water, organic solvents, raw materials, reagents,
process aids) used to the weight of the product produced.
As a green chemist, it is important to focus on reducing
the waste as much as possible before it is produced; this not only
benefits the workers in the chemical industry but also the
environment. As our culture places more emphasis on “green
living” and lessening our stamp on the environment, prevention
in the lab becomes increasingly more important not only to
chemists but for everyone around us.
For more information on how to incorporate these practices into
your lab, please visit :
http://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/co
mmittees/chemicalsafety/publications/less-is-better.pdf
Congratulations to Asha Kadam as she recently received her
Ph.D in Chemistry with a focus on Green Chemistry. Her
publications include:
1) Kadam, A.; Bellinger, S.; Zhang, W. “Atom- and StepEconomic
Synthesis
of
Biaryl
Substituted
Furocoumarins, Furoquinolones and Furopyrimidines
by Multicomponent Reactions and One-Pot Synthesis”
Green Process. Synth. 2013, 2, 491-497.
2) Kadam, A.; Nguyen, M.; Kopach, M.; Richardson, P.;
Gallou, F.; Wan, Z.-K.; Zhang, W. “Comparative
Performance Evaluation and Systematic Screening of
Solvents in a Range of Grignard Reactions” Green
Chem. 2013, 15, 1880-1888.
3) Kadam, A.; Ding, S.; Piqani, B.; Zhang, W.
“Convertible Fluorous Sulfonate Linker for the
Synthesis of Diverse Library Scaffolds” J. Chinese
Chem. Soc. 2011, 58, 575-582.
4) Kadam, A.; Buckley, S. B.; Dinh, T.; Fitzgerald, R.;
Zhang, W. “Convertible Fluorous Linker-Assisted
Synthesis of Tetrasubstituted Furans” Synlett, 2011,
1608-1612.
5) Kadam, A.; Zhang, Z.; Zhang, W. “Microwave-Assisted
Fluorous Multicomponent Reactions – A Combinatorial
Chemistry Approach for Green Organic Synthesis”
Curr. Org. Syn. 2011, 8, 295-309.
We wish Asha the best of luck
wherever her career takes her!
This Issue of UMB Green
Chemistry Newsletter was
brought to you by
Caitlin Pollock
Yuan Xia
Shiva Dastjerdi
If you are interested in joining
our mailing list please contact
Caitlin Pollock at:
GreenChemNewsletter@umb.edu
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/greenchemistry/researchinnovation/tools-for-green-chemistry.html
UMB GreenChemistry 3