The chemical industry is a major contributor to the global economy, with a market size of over US $4 trillion in 2021. The industry is also a significant employer, with millions of people working in various roles, including research and development, production, quality, EHS, sales, and logistics. 

In India, the chemical industry is extremely diversified and covers more than 80,000 commercial products. This can be broadly classified into bulk chemicals, specialty chemicals, agrochemicals, petrochemicals, polymers, and fertilizers. One of the major challenges the industry faces is changing consumer preferences. 

As consumers become more environmentally conscious, there is an increasing demand for products that are made from sustainable and environmentally friendly materials. This trend is driving the development of new products and technologies and therefore, one of the fundamental drivers of growth in the chemical industry continues to be R&D.  

The traditional approach of chemical organizations to R&D may not be the best option as the industry is changing fast with development of newer technologies and digitalization across the world. It will be difficult for companies to remain competitive if they do not stay ahead of the technology curve. This is only possible by investing in R&D and developing new products. Therefore, R&D will play an extremely important role in helping organizations achieve sustainable goals. 

Sustainable chemistry aims to design and develop chemicals and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances, minimize environmental impacts, and promote economic growth. It is important for R&D to focus on the twelve principles of “Green Chemistry” which include prevention, atom economy, less hazardous chemical syntheses, designing safer chemicals, safer solvents and auxiliaries, design for energy efficiency, use of renewable feedstocks, reduce derivatives, catalysis, design for degradation, real-time analysis for pollution prevention, and inherently safer chemistry for accident prevention.  

Scientists and engineers working in R&D should also focus on developing new sustainable materials, such as biodegradable plastics, bio-based materials, and recyclable materials to replace traditional materials that are less sustainable. Newer technologies can also be used to develop new processes for recycling and upcycling materials. Chemists need to develop new methods for breaking down plastics into their component parts, which can then be used to create new products. Additionally, upcycling processes can transform waste materials into new products, reducing the need for new raw materials. Coatings play a critical role in many industries, but traditional coatings can be harmful to the environment. Green chemistry can be used to develop sustainable coatings that are less harmful to the environment. For example, researchers can develop coatings that are made from renewable materials or coatings that have lower volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.  

In the agrochemical industry, efforts of scientists over several years have resulted in identification and developing safer chemicals that have lower toxicity and are less harmful to human health and the environment. Discovering new modes of actions for insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides has helped farmers to reduce the doses of chemicals from Kg/hectare to few grams/hectare. Scientists have developed safer raw materials which cause minimum damage to the environment and are less hazardous for farmers. Collaboration among researchers, government agencies, and industry can help identify safer chemicals. By sharing data and knowledge, stakeholders can work together to identify chemicals that are safer and more sustainable.  

In the pharmaceutical industry, sustainable manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) is important to ensure supply security to manufacture required formulations. This was evident during Covid-19 period as some of the most developed nations were dependent on India to supply life-saving drugs. Recently developed and introduced APIs are highly active but complex in chemistry. Therefore, more sophisticated processes are involved which also poses challenges and opportunities for R&D scientists. Atom economy, waste generation and chemical reaction hazards need to be focused to ensure sustainability of the processes. 

In the oil and gas industry, engineers and chemists in the upstream processes need to collaborate to develop greener solutions which are effective as corrosion inhibitors, scale inhibitors, viscosity modifiers, emulsion breakers, reverse emulsion breakers, biocides, hydrate inhibitors among others. These solutions are extremely important for sustainability considering the high-volume requirements. Developing and identification of greener catalysts, fuel additives, H2S scavengers in the downstream process of the oil and gas industry is equally important for sustainability. 

Today, the sustainable practices followed by Industries are limited to solvent recoveries and developing safe processes to avoid accidents. Economic and technical challenges often hinder the commercialization of green chemical processes. Over the last few years, commercialization of a few green technologies using ionic liquids and supercritical carbon dioxide as solvent were attempted with limited success.  

Microwave chemistry is extremely popular with academia but still not seen as a success in commercial applications. Advantages of microwave chemistry include low energy consumption, homogeneity, speed of heating, faster reaction (minutes instead of hours or days), atom economy (greater yield and lesser wastage), green solvents (including water, ethanol, and methanol) which are strongly responsive to microwave. 

Less or no solvent also gives opportunity to perform concentrated reactions and possibility of neat condition or supported reagents. Rapid conditions screening for integrated on-line control guarantees safe operations. R&D scientists need to challenge themselves to commercialize this technology which will contribute significantly to the sustainability cause.  

There are also recent reports of commercial applications of surfactant mediated reactions but in limited numbers. Many organic fundamental organic reactions, which otherwise need organic phase and dry conditions, can be carried out in water using surfactant mediated technology. Advantages of this chemistry is that it brings substrates and reagents in proximity to enhance efficiency and rate of reaction, and it sometimes shows reactivity or selectivity that cannot be attained in organic medium. Considering the potential of this technology, more efforts are needed to popularize green chemistry. 

Flow chemistry is getting good traction and over the next few years, it is expected that several batch processes will be converted to continuous using flow chemistry. In flow chemistry, reagents are continuously pumped through the reactor and the product is continuously collected. Key factors for flow chemistry reactions are residence time (flow rates), mixing, pressure and temperature. Some of the highly energetic reactions such as nitration are good candidates for flow chemistry and are being practiced in industry.  

Sustainability principles should be considered when we initiate the process development of any molecule. It is important that during the ideation stage, we must thoroughly debate and look for sustainable practices. This includes the use of lower quantities of volatile organic solvents and recyclable catalysts. This also includes focusing on processes which give least minimum products and maximum yields resulting in superior atom economy and selecting processes with least steps resulting in energy efficient synthesis.  

During the entire product lifecycle from development to growth and from maturity to decline, processes need changes. In every step, the development team must focus on sustainability which may also be achieved through collaborations with academia or research institutes.  Industry and academia must foster a better environment for creativity by jointly building and developing new knowledge and by bringing together multi-talented groups of researchers from both pools to provide solutions to make R&D more sustainable. 

To develop a sustainable process for optimum yield (which is also intrinsically safe to manufacture), very often we are required to use solvents in larger quantities and hence it is extremely important to judiciously follow 3R (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) principles. 

We must try to Reduce as minimum solvent as possible in the process, our next option must be to Reuse it back in the process. However, very often it has challenges of impurities and therefore Recycle after appropriate treatment is key to the success of the process. All efforts should also be made to use solvents with superior EHS profile such as minimum ozone depletion potential and biodegradability. This also has an economic advantage since incineration of waste is not cost effective and will result in expensive product costs.  

Green chemistry is probably not a solution to all environmental challenges, but it still remains to be the most fundamental approach in achieving sustainability goals. Green processes will not be successful if not economically viable and therefore Green technology must compete with classical processes with respect to cost of the product.  More efforts are required from R&D as well as commercial teams to make our products “Good and Green”. 

Globally, there is an increased regulatory focus on ESG and climate risk, and the chemical industry will be the first one to face scrutiny. We need to work towards changing the environmental brand image of the chemical industry by focusing on sustainable and green technologies to deliver better and safer solutions. R&D will play an integral role in fostering economic and viable solutions for future growth.