How can we make chemistry green and sustainable? Changing catalysis is a good starting point! Catalysis is a key technology in the chemical industry: 85-90% of all products are manufactured using catalytic processes. “Catalysis is the magic that makes it possible for one substance to become another,” says Arne Thomas, co-spokesperson of UniSysCat and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at TU Berlin.
But the tools of chemistry have been developed over 150 years with a certain mindset. And this needs to be changed. Berliner Morgenpost recently described how the research alliance forming UniSysCat wants to pave the way for the green chemistry of the future: "Von der Natur lernen: Auf dem Weg zur Grünen Chemie"
"We want to think differently now. This includes the sustainability of the result, but also the sustainability of the production processes,” says Juri Rappsilber, spokesperson of UniSysCat and Professor of Bioanalytics at TU Berlin.
The key to more sustainable processes in the chemical industry lies in thinking like nature. The idea is to bring chemistry and biology together in catalysis and create optimized, coupled catalysts for many applications in technology, industry and medicine.
To achieve these goals, UniSysCat is home to extensive basic research. But the research teams always try to think about the applications as well. That is how an ecosystem for start-ups in the field of green chemistry has developed around it: greenCHEM is providing support and infrastructure for chemists who want to bring their research into applications. This infrastructure is highly needed. Therefore the capacity will be increased by building the Chemical Invention Factory – John Warner Center for Start-ups in Green Chemistry. Ground breaking for the new building will be this year.
Juri Rappsilber and Arne Thomas see no alternative to green chemistry and, in particular, new catalytic processes from an environmental point of view. They make clear that they are working on the future of all of us!