4th Annual Edward Brush Green Chemistry Awards Symposium – Part 1

As is true for essentially all chemistry courses, the demands of content coverage in General Chemistry leave many instructors with concerns about introducing complementary concepts that augment the core chemistry of the course. Inclusion of green chemistry concepts, therefore, can present challenges for instructors teaching general chemistry. The importance of green chemistry in general chemistry is accentuated by the fact that for many students, general chemistry is the last chemistry course they will take. A method that can make the introduction of green principles easy, however, lies in the common teaching practice of adding applications of chemistry topics throughout the class. Where this type of content often includes one-time application examples in tune with the core content, a different strategy looks to choose one theme and have the applications always (or almost always) build understanding of that single area of application. Green chemistry ideas, along with examples of the molecular basis of sustainability, provide rich contexts around which applications of chemical principles can routinely build on prior application examples. In this way, green chemistry can become part of the general chemistry course with only modest changes in the instructional schedule, as applications would be incorporated in any case. Different examples will be presented of how this strategy works to make it easy bein’ green in general chemistry.

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) trains the future designers, entrepreneurs, and innovators who will create and scale the next generation of textiles, cosmetics, and consumer goods. While the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry provide a roadmap for sustainability, their true power is realized when they transcend the laboratory and are integrated across disciplines. As a science educator with students across schools of business, arts, and design, my work focuses on adapting these guiding principles so the creators of tomorrow can leverage the fundamentals of green chemistry and engineering. By utilizing tools such as Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and Techno-Economic Assessments (TEA), we bridge the gap between core chemical concerns, such as atom economy and toxicology, and the practical metrics of market viability. Through hands-on exploration of dyes, skincare ingredients, and sustainable packaging, this pedagogical approach demystifies the molecular world. We move students past a general apprehension of “chemicals” towards having agency, where they see chemistry as a vital tool for innovation. By training non-scientists to prioritize safety and efficiency at the design stage, we can empower a new generation to build a future where consumer products are inherently economic, ethical, and regenerative.

While green chemistry principles and sustainable practices are steadily being integrated into undergraduate curricula at academic institutions, their adoption within inorganic chemistry remains largely at an early, nucleation stage. Broad adoption of these concepts across all of chemistry is essential to fully equipping students with the necessary tools to continue advancing our field as the next generation of chemists. How can we distill green chemistry ideologies and principles into undergraduate students through inorganic chemistry in a meaningful and impactful way? Are there ways to catalyze a pedagogical and cultural change within the inorganic teaching community to refocus using sustainable and “greener” chemistry? This talk will reflect my journey and evolution in green chemistry education and highlight contributions towards reimagining inorganic chemistry education through a green lens. Examples will include working with students-as-partners to develop curriculum such as new inorganic teaching experiments grounded in green and sustainable chemistry, cultivating faculty collaborations and a community of practice, and leading initiatives to support other instructors through workshops and shared teaching resources. The goals of this presentation are to motivate and empower educators at all stages of their green chemistry journey, including those early in adoption like myself, to (1) integrate green chemistry into their own curricula and pedagogy, and (2) contribute to the broader green chemistry education movement.

Green chemistry cannot be taught without practice. To prepare the next generation of scientists, we must move beyond teaching the 12 Principles as mere content and instead model them in our pedagogy. Using my work from Singapore to Dublin, this presentation traces a global educational journey to build a “dual-sustainability” framework where sustainability is both the core curriculum and the standard of practice.

The first stage of this journey involved a systematic reform of foundational lab modules. Hazardous materials were replaced with benign alternatives. These innovations were scaled globally via an Open Educational Resource (OER) library on YouTube, which has now reached over 4.9 million views.

The second stage focuses on “Sustainability as Practice,” utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) excursions to reduce carbon footprints and digital tools like Telegram Quiz Bots to ensure social inclusivity and “psychological safety”. Central to this ecosystem is the transformation of students into co-innovators; to date, this mentorship model has led 21 undergraduates to present at international conferences and co-author research in the Journal of Chemical Education.

Finally, the presentation will detail the “force multiplier” effect of training in-service secondary teachers and the future development of a “Virtual Green Toolkit” to empower resource-limited institutions worldwide.

Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction (CO₂RR) offers a sustainable pathway to convert greenhouse gas emissions into value-added chemicals, yet current electrolyzers rely on scarce noble-metal anodes that limit scalability. A noble-metal-free CO₂ electrolyzer is presented that integrates earth-abundant nickel foam anodes with a newly developed ambipolar ion transport membrane (AITM), enabling ion and water transport while mitigating salt formation and crossover. In neutral electrolyte, the system sustains 110 mA cm^-2 with 75% faradaic efficiency toward C₂ products at 3.15 V and maintains over 950 h of continuous stability. Scalability is demonstrated in a 25 cm² cell achieving 45% ethylene selectivity at 400 mA cm^-2 with a low cell voltage of 3.72 V. In alkaline media, operation using an on/off strategy delivers 80% C₂ selectivity at 110 mA cm^-2 with an exceptionally low cell voltage of 2.2 V, reduced carbonate formation, and stable performance exceeding 500 h, corresponding to 40% C₂ energy efficiency and an energy cost of 360 GJ per ton of ethylene. By replacing rare materials with earth-abundant alternatives and improving efficiency and durability, this architecture advances green chemistry principles and provides a viable pathway toward scalable and sustainable CO₂ utilization.

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) presents a unique challenge to achieving carbon circularity in the plastic industry due to its tendency to form low-value polyenes, corrosive acid, and carcinogenic dioxins when heated. To address this challenge and help stem PVC-based pollution, a dechlorination and alkylation strategy was designed to upcycle PVC. In the presence of Lewis acids and α-olefins, PVC undergoes dechlorination, chain scissions, and alkylation at 70 °C. Remarkably, the dechlorination and alkylation strategy was effective in converting real-world PVC products into oligomeric hydrocarbons. Converting PVC plastics into low molar mass hydrocarbons without the need for chlorine scavengers presents a scalable and practical avenue for reclaiming this hard-to-recycle plastic.

Plastics are not just polymer. They often contain myriad chemicals that yield desired processing, performance, and end-of-life properties (e.g., plasticizers, UV-stabilizers, and antioxidants). Among the tens of thousands of additives (i.e., fillers, colorants, modifiers, reinforcers, and non-intentionally added substances) used industrially, many present risks to human and environmental health. As polymers are redesigned for biodegradability, recyclability, and valorization, the additives used in these materials also need to be reimagined. Natural products and biomolecules show potential as green additives because of their perceived or inherent environmental degradability and reduced toxicity. In particular, nucleic acids (i.e., DNA) stand out as an attractive additive due to ample source availability from food and agricultural biomass wastes. Inspired by reports of DNA providing flame retardance and melt processing aid to polymers, we investigate the engineered design of nucleic acids as benign, multi-functional plastic additives across the complete material life cycle. Key to the design of these materials is the compatibilization with the polymer matrix. Given that DNA is a polyanion, we leveraged polyelectrolyte-surfactant interactions to self-assemble the additive and evaluated their resulting interactions with polymer (e.g., miscibility). Incorporation of these additives has resulted in plastics with tunable properties (e.g., mechanical, thermophysical, processing, performance, and degradation). This work has implications for circular material design of fossil- and bio-derived polymers, providing an avenue for reduced compositional complexity, safer additives, and utilization of waste biomass.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) utilization in polymer synthesis presents a promising strategy for carbon storage while enabling the development of more sustainable materials.
In this work, we investigate the metal-free copolymerization of epoxides and/or bio-derived anhydrides (e.g., from pine trees or lemon peels) and/or CO₂ to make polyesters and/or polycarbonates, or related block copolymers. Bio-derived anhydrides are first formed via microwave methods, and are then coupled with epoxides to create polyesters using an arylborane catalyst system, followed by CO₂ incorporation to generate polyester–polycarbonate block copolymers. Polymer structure was confirmed using various NMR spectroscopic methods (1D and 2D), and MALDI-TOF MS. Further polymer characterization was performed via GPC, DSC, and TGA.
The polymers formed in this work were then subjected to post-polymerization functionalization via photoinitiated thiol-ene click chemistry to determine the tunability of polymer properties. The resulting functionalized polymers exhibited vastly different physical properties than their precursors, as determined by DSC, TGA, GPC, and surface contact angle measurements.
Overall, this work highlights how integrating metal-free catalysis, renewable monomers, CO₂ utilization, and post-polymerization functionalization can enable the design of more sustainable polymeric materials. The ability to modify polymer properties also widens the range of possible materials without the need for repeated polymer syntheses, supporting more resource-efficient and sustainable materials design.