UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON
GREEN CHEMISTRY NEWSLETTER
Issue 2
December 2014
The Green Chemistry Track in the Chemistry Ph.D. 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
the chemistry and biology department as well as the school for the environment faculty has allowed the University of
Massachusetts Boston to create such a program.
http://www.umb.edu/greenchemistry
News
UMass Boston’s ACS Student Chapter has earned the Green
Chemistry Chapter Award for the second year in a row.
Dr. Berkeley Cue and Prof. Wei Zhang are serving on the
international advisory board of 2015 Drug Discovery & Therapy
World Congress in Boston.
Graduate student Shuai Liu (Prof. Wei Zhang’s lab) is the
recipient of green chemistry graduate scholarship designated by
Dr. John Warner as part of his 2014 SCI Perkin Medal Award.
Graduate student Courtney Ngai (Dr. Hannah Sevian’s lab)
received a travel scholarship from NSF and attended and
presented a poster “Chemical Identity: What is this substance?”
at the Gordon Research Conference on Green Chemistry in Hong
Kong in August.
John Collins (Prof. Foster’s lab) defended his sustainable energyrelated Ph.D. thesis “Tuning Carbon Microstructure for
Advancing Electrochemical Energy Storage” in June.
Graduate student Maria Kipreos (Dr. Michelle Foster’s lab)
received the travel award and attended the ACS Summer School
on Green Chemistry & Sustainable Energy at the Colorado
School of Mines in Golden, Colorado in July.
Korea Science Academy of Kaist (KSA) sent a group of high
school students to Boston for science workshops at MIT, Tufts
University, Boston University, and UMass Boston. Prof. Wei
Zhang was invited to give seminars on the topic of green
chemistry in October.
Prof. Wei Zhang is invited to give a talk “Recyclable
Organocatalysis for Asymmetric Fluorination” at the 2nd
Annual Symposium and Workshop of the Global Green
Chemistry Centres in Cape Town, South Africa in August.
Prof. Wei Zhang is invited to give a talk “Recent
Development on Green Solvents for Industrial Applications”
at ASC Sustainability Forum - A Supply Chain Discussion of
Trends and Market Drivers in Baltimore In July.
Prof. Wei Zhang is invited to give a talk “Fluorous
Technologies for Green Organic Synthesis and Catalysis” at
the Next Steps in Green Chemistry Research Workshop
organized by Green Chemistry Initiative at the University of
Toronto in May.
Recent Publications
Maertens, A.; Anastas, N.; Spencer, P. J.; Stephens, M.;
Goldberg, A.; Hartung, T. “Food for Thought - Green
Toxicology” ALTEX 2014, 31, 243-249.
Cho, H.; Török, F.; Török, B. “Energy efficiency of
heterogeneous
catalytic
microwave-assisted
organic
reactions” Green Chem. 2014, 16, 3623-3634.
Thuo, M. M.; Martinez, R. V.; Liu, X.; Atkinson, M. B.; J.
Bloch, J. F. Whitesides, G. M. “Low-Cost microfluidic
devices derived from embossed hydrophobic paper” Chem.
Mater. 2014, 26, 4230-4237.
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
McKeown, M.; Shaw, D.; Fu, H.; Liu, S.; Xu, X.; Marineau,
J.; Huang, Y.; Zhang, X.; Buckley, D.; Lin, C.; Kadam, A.;
Zhang, Z.; Blacklow, S.; Qi, J.; Zhang, W.; Bradner, J.
“Biased multicomponent reactions to develop novel
bromodomain inhibitors” J. Med. Chem. 2014, 57, 9019-9027.
UMB GreenChemistry 1
People in Green
Chemistry
Shuai Liu
Each year the Society of Chemical Industry
awards one scientist in the United States as the
recipient of the Perkin Medal Award for notable
work in applied chemistry. In 2014 the Perkin
Medal Award was given to Dr. John C. Warner
(above middle), one of the world’s leading
advocates of green chemistry. Each recipient of
this award then gets to choose an exceptional
student to receive the Perkin Scholarship, an
amount of $5000, for their excellence in applied
chemistry and contributions to research. This
year, the recipient of this scholarship was
UMass Boston’s Shuai Liu!
In 2012 Shuai (above right) received his
bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Lanzhou
University in China, far from his hometown in
Huaiyang County. Shuai is a 3rd year Ph.D.
student working with Dr. Wei Zhang at UMass
Boston on applications of green chemistry
principles for drug discovery. Currently Shuai is
working on a collaboration project with
Harvard Medical School and Dana Farber
Cancer Institute developing benign synthetic
methods for the preparation of compounds
which may be invaluable to the medical field.
In order to receive this scholarship Shuai and
his girlfriend, He Huang, (above left) traveled
to Philadelphia to attend a special award
ceremony and banquet. Shuai is appreciative to
have been able to share this achievement in the
company of He, especially since his family is in
China. Although not with them every day, he
knows that chasing his dreams would not be
possible without their encouragement and
support.
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/chemis
try/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
UMB GreenChemistry 2
Green Chemistry
Principle #2
Atom Economy
As chemists strive to produce less waste and
create more efficient reactions, it becomes
important that they have some way of measuring
the efficiency so that a comparison can be made
between processes to decide which is the more
appropriate to use. Atom Economy is one of
many green indicators designed to help chemists
analyze reactions mathematically to see if they
are efficient. Atom Economy has become known
as the second Green Chemistry Principle and was
introduced by Barry Trost in the early 1990’s.
Other green indicators such as percent yield and
E-factor are also helpful however; atom economy
is the best one to use when comparing many
processes.
Atom Economy is a ratio of molecular weight of
desired product and the molecular weight of the
reactants in a reaction which is then multiplied
by 100. A high Atom Economy indicates that
most of the reactants get converted to the
product, this is a desired result. On the other
hand, a low atom economy tells the scientist that
a large amount of reactants to dot get turned into
products and therefore is not efficient and there
may be a better alternative. One of the goals of
green chemistry is to reduce waste and therefore
have less to deal with in the end, therefore, if you
can convert more of your reactant atoms to
product atoms then you will yield less waste in
the end.
If you want to read more about this principle and
how to apply it to your own work the following is
a link to a great paper entitled, “Real atom
economy and its application for evaluation the
green degree of a process”.
For more detailed information about this
principle in the literature please visit:
http://www.springerlink.com/index/T1VKM387
WJ10T8G0.pdf
NESSE
Network of Early-Career Sustainable
Scientists and Engineers (NESSE) is an
international and interdisciplinary network of
early-career scientists that share a common
vision: a sustainable future for all. The
mission of NESSE is to provide a platform
for scientists to inspire and encourage each
other toward sustainable innovation,
building a new generation of researchers
who are driven by green practices. NESSE
also aims to educate the public, enable
collaboration and mentoring between
scientists and engineers, and encourage
leadership and advocacy in the scientific
community. Participation in NESSE ranges
from casual Facebook and Twitter
discussions to starting your own sustainable
science group or practicing your writing
skills for the NESSE blog. For more
information about NESSE and to join the
community, please visit their website at
http://www.sustainablescientists.org/
NESSE is on Twitter (@greenscientists)
and Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sustain
ablescientists/
For any further questions email, Ray Borg, a
graduate student at UMass Boston, and also
a current active member of NESSE at:
GreenChemNewsletter@umb.edu
This Issue of UMB Green Chemistry
Newsletter was brought to you by:
Caitlin Pollock and Ray Borg
If you are interested in joining our
mailing list please contact Caitlin Pollock
at:
GreenChemNewsletter@umb.edu
UMB GreenChemistry 3