Green field opportunity

Additionally, the environmental issue of utilizing waste cellulosic material and waste biomass products should be considered as an alternative green chemistry application to the production of many value added products. The combinatorial utilization of carbohydrate scaffolds based on chiral building block functionalization will also constitute attractive and relatively cheap starting materials. This rich selection of potential approaches, combined with further developments of new procedures and modem reagents, creates an enormous opportunity for the field to be at the frontier for many years to come. 

Of the plethora of benefits that derive from practicing green chemistry, one that is not often considered, or at least discussed, is its application toward enhancing the professional development of faculty as they advance through the ranks. Opportunities within the areas of teaching, scholarly activities (research and related), and service (both community and institutional) abound as the field advances rapidly. Within the context of developing new green chemistry educational materials, herein is presented a discussion of multiple professional development opportunities taken from both the authors personal experiences as well as from the numerous contributions of others in the field. 

Biocatalysis and biomaterials are dynamic areas of research that have continued to attract a lot of attention. Developments in these areas are largely fueled by demands for sustainable technologies, a desire to decrease our dependence on petroleum, and commercial opportunities to develop green products. Publications and patents in these fields continue to grow as more people are involved in research and commercial activities. 

LCA methodology applied in the development of new polymer composites is a relative new field, but it has already been widely used in many industrial sectors as a very useful tool to drive the choice of materials and processes towards a more sustainable production system. Several LCA applications to both traditional composites and new green composites have pointed out that the benefits of using green composites produced with natural fibres and bio-derived matrices, compared to traditional composites, appear superior, and their market opportunities are increasing for many industrial sectors. 

Final experiments (Table 5.1) were selected with consideration of the local availability of required materials. These experiments were successfully field tested by 60 Kuwaiti high school teachers as part of a three-day Kuwait City workshop, presented in March 2009 under the coordination of the President of the Kuwait Chemical Society, whom I had serendipitously met the previous year at a conference (coincidentally in Bangkok). While in Kuwait, I had the opportunity to discuss green experimentation on the... 

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