Available work sustainable development

The Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) project was an independent, multi-disciplinary research project undertaken from 2000-2002 that explored how the mining and minerals sector could contribute to society s global transition to sustainable development. All working papers, final reports, bulletins, and workshop notes are available at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) website (http //www.iied.org/ sustainable-markets/key-issues/business-and-sustainable-development/mining-minerals-and-sustainable-development). 

We have shown organocatalysis to be a powerful tool for the synthesis of drugs and natural products. Our work and that of others have clearly demonstrated that organocatalytic strategies can cut down the total number of synthetic operations. As organocatalysts are usually non-toxic, air- and moisture-stable and often available from renewable sources, they are destined to have an impact on the development of future sustainable chemical processes. 

The following subsections will focus on the environmental assessment along the life cycle of products. Some aspects of cost aspects and social sustainability will briefly be addressed as well. Especially regarding social aspects, several approaches have aheady been presented by different research groups. However, methods are still under development. It can be expected that reliable life cycle decision support in social working environment issues will be available and practice-proven from about 2010 or 2011 onwards. 

The mouse bioassay (MBA) was developed 70 years ago by Sommer and Meyer as part of their pioneering work that related the dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella (Gonyaulax) as a causative agent of PSP (see Wekell et al ). At the time, the identity of the paralyzing toxic compounds was not known and the MBA remained for several years as a field test to help health officials manage toxic outbreaks in Alaska and British Columbia.Only after a purified saxitoxin dihydrochloride was made available in 1950 was it possible to calibrate the assay, and the AOAC accepted the new version of the MBA as an official method. Reasons for the sustained application of the MBA lie in its simplicity of application, relatively low cost, and availability of test protocols to calibrate mice strains to compare operator performance and to perform repeatability and reproducibility studies (National Shellfish Sanitation Program, USA ). 

After a brief historical overview, the various approaches to the scale-up of microwave chemistry will be discussed. This will be followed by a section detailing the current commercially available microwave reactors for scale-up. Practical applications and concerns will be addressed together with a discussion of reaction classes that work particularly well in microwave reactors. Chemistry that has been performed in the different available reactors will be presented in order to exan-plify particular techniques and practices, but the discussion will not attempt to be exhaustive since several other books and reviews have already attempted this." Attention here will be drawn to special features and uses. Further applications to demonstrate how microwave heating can be used as an investigative tool at the small scale for process chemists and others wiU foUow. In accordance with the main theme of sustainability of this book, the current hot topic of the energy efficiency of microwave heating will also be covered in this chapter. Recent developments in the area of pilot-scale microwave chemistry will be noted before the final conclusions. 

The development of a novel plant-based biologically active ingredient generally follows well-defined steps correlated to a logic process flow, which is less dependent on the part of the plant used, e.g. fruits, flowers, leaves, by-products such as oilcakes, or the intended final performance. All work starts with the identification of a suitable raw material and corresponding suppliers. The aforementioned principles of sustainability have to be applied already at this stage, and all available information must be analyzed in a critical manner. Key... 

What definitely proved to be true was the intention to use the partially non-formal student laboratory as a catalyst for innovations in practical work in chemistry education. New experiments and teaching-learning scenarios were developed, successfully tested by the visiting students and finally published. With these materials a growing body of classroom materials on chemistry-related sustainability issues became available which now offer a chance to be implemented by teachers even beyond this project. 

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