You are here: resources › Online Presentations › Life Cycle Analysis of Biobased Pennakem's … › About
Life Cycle Analysis of Biobased Pennakem's ecoMeTHF™ : Green Solvents for the Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemical Industry
Licensed according to this deed.
Category
Published on
Abstract
An environmental analysis has been conducted to determine the life cycle emissions to manufacture the green solvent, 2-methyltetrahydrofuran. Analyses have been performed using different methods to show greenness in both its production and industrial use. This solvent has the potential as a substitute for other ether and chlorinated solvents commonly used in organometallic and biphasic reactions steps in pharmaceutical and fine chemical syntheses. 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran is made from renewable agricultural by-products. The starting material, 2-furfuraldehyde, is produced from corn cob waste by converting the available pentose by acid hydrolysis. The process to convert 2-furfuraldehyde to 2-methyltetrahydrofuran occurs in two hydrogenation steps, the first being the conversion to 2-methylfuran. Cradle to gate life cycle emissions for 2-methyltetrahydrofuran are not available in commercially used environmental databases, so a new inventory was created based on known manufacturing information. An evaluation of each step in the process (2-furfuraldehyde, 2-methylfuran, 2-methyltetrahyrofuran) determined CO2 emissions, overall emissions to air, water and soil and other impact factors. Our analysis shows that 2-methyltetrahydrofuran exhibits lower impact scores in the emissions categories when compared to solvents such as tetrahydrofuran, made through a conventional chemical route. A study was performed to determine energy and emissions associated with use and recovery of 2-methyltetrahydrofuran in a typical pharmaceutical industry application. A reduced carbon footprint results from substituting 2-methyltetrahydrofuran for tetrahydrofuran due to its ability to be more easily recovered from waste streams.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
-
Mariano Savelski; C. Stewart Slater; Dave Aycock; Bogdan Comanita; Steve Prescott; Jeff Shifflette; Rowan University (2013), "Life Cycle Analysis of Biobased Pennakem's ecoMeTHF™ : Green Solvents for the Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemical Industry," https://pharmahub.org/resources/584.