Overview

Since the 1990s, the scientific community has progressively changed its approach toward dealing with regulations for environmental protection. This evolution in the chemical industries and R & D labs has led to the development of green chemistry. In the last decade, green chemistry has been widely recognized and accepted as a new means for sustainable development. As the name suggests, green chemistry is a scientific approach that is inherently safer than the old-fashioned cleanup chemistry, which, prior to the 1990s, was used to meet environmental protection laws.

Industries are often forced to pay heavy prices to meet with the standards set by the pollution regulatory boards while using the traditional methods of treating or recycling waste. Also, with growing environmental problems, law-making boards are now looking more critically at the possible hazardous effects of a larger number of chemical substances. Thus, the combined effect of existing environmental safety regulations, the evolving scientific understanding of previously little-known toxic chemicals and their long-term effect on the biota, and the industries' monetary interests have turned attention from end-of-pipe cleanup to environmentally safer production processes through the green chemistry approach. A simple definition of green chemistry as given by the U.S. EPA is, "Use of chemistry for pollution prevention and design of chemical products and processes that are more environmentally benign" http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/. The growing importance now given to green chemistry can be attributed to the ability of this approach to bridge ecoefficiency and economic growth.

Catalysis and Green Chemistry

In general, catalysis...