Green Chemistry for Chemistry Students

(The May/June 2012 newsletter of the American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute recaps a Q&A session with Dr. David Constable about “Measures of Green Chemistry Performance.” Some questions dealt with green chemistry in undergraduate and graduate education and are reproduced below. Go here to read more of the Q&A with Dr. Constable, or even better, go here to watch the full length webinar.)

From “Measures of Green Chemistry Performance”, 8 March 2012, Dr. David Constable –An ACS Green Chemistry Institute ® Webinar

Q: What one thing, other than the 12 principles, would you most like undergraduate chemistry majors to learn about Green Chemistry in industry?

A: How to think about solutions to the chemical problems they are trying to solve. Undergraduates still learn reactions and approaches to chemistry that are based in the 19th century, not the 21st. Green chemistry requires the synthesis of many scientific disciplines beyond the fundamentals…