News

The 2023 European Sustainable Chemistry Award

The 2023 European Sustainable Chemistry Award is presented to Professor  Arjan W. Kleij of Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) based in Tarragona (Spain).

The award recognizes Professor Arjan’s world leading position in the area of CO2 utilization and especially synthesis and applications of cyclic carbonates. 

Arjan W. Kleij

The EuChemS Sustainable SCA 2023 will be presented to Arjan W. Kleij at 6th EuChemS Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (6EuGSC), that will be held on 3rd – 6th September 2023 (https://6eugsc.org/).

The Division Chair Prof. Ana Aguiar-Ricardo acknowledges the valuable contribution of the ESCA Awards Committee.

6th EuChemS Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry

On behalf of the Organizing and Scientific Committees, I wish to inform you that the 6th EuChemS Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry will be held on 3-6 September 2023 in Salerno (Italy).

It is a pleasure that after 4 years of obvious difficulties, we have the chance to meet in person during this central event for the community of researchers involved in all the different aspects of sustainability.

The conference will feature an excellent line-up of plenary and keynote speakers that will bring a recent view of all the areas of research that are crucial for the development of a green and sustainable chemistry.

For more information, please see the message below or visit the conference website: https://6eugsc.org/

Additional details will follow concerning all the deadlines, travel and lodging.

We look forward to welcoming you at the 6th EuGSC and have a fruitful and enjoyable conference.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee.

Best regards,

Luigi Vaccaro (Chair of the 6th EuGSC), Carmine Capacchione (Chair of the Organizing Committee), Giulia Licini (Chair of the Italian group of GCCS. SCI), and Ana Aguiar Ricardo, President of the EuDGSC

GREENERING

COST Action GREENERING

Green Chemical Engineering Network towards upscaling sustainable processes

GREENERING has the objective to promote and boost the industrial application of green chemistry and sustainable technologies, developing the tools for the scale-up and implementation of emerging processes in the industry. GREENERING is focused on the four major factors that contribute to the faster growth of green chemistry: Collaboration, Technology Forcing, Compromise and Enhanced Education. GREENERING will consist of conferences, seminars, summer schools, practical courses mentoring towards funding and commercialization, student/researcher mobility, facilitating the creation of new start-up companies and reinforced implementation of green technologies at the industrial level. These activities will be a driving force for creating consumer awareness and influence on governmental regulations.

2021 European Sustainable Chemistry Award

The 2021 European Sustainable Chemistry Award is presented to Professor James Clark of the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence at the University of York UK.

The award recognises Professor Clark’s track record in the commercialisation of fundamental green chemistry research alongside his outstanding contributions in the development of green chemistry as a distinct area of chemistry and in the creation of a global green chemistry community.

ESCA 2021 will be presented to Professor James Clark at the 5th EuChemS Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (5th EuGSC), that will be held 26th – 29th September 2021 (virtual conference).

The Division Chair Prof. Ana Aguiar-Ricardo acknowledges the valuable contribution of the ESCA Awards Committee.


Division AGM

The DGSC held its AGM in Taragonna before the EuChemS Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry.

The minutes can be found here.

9th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry

The 9th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry, organized by the Association of Greek Chemists (AGC) in collaboration with the IUPAC Interdivisional Committee on Green Chemistry for Sustainable Development (ICGCSD) and the Hellenic Green Chemistry Network will take place in Athens, Greece between 18th – 22nd October 2020

The IUPAC International Conferences on Green Chemistry (ICGCs) gather several hundreds of scientists, technologists, and experts from all over the world with the aim of exchanging and disseminating new ideas and discoveries, and promoting collaborations within the frame of green chemistry, sustainable development and the circular economy.

ICGC-9 is the 9th of the series of IUPAC conferences on green chemistry, the first having been organized in Germany (2006), followed by Russia (2008), Canada (2010), Brazil (2012), South Africa (2014), Italy (2016), Russia (2017) and Thailand (2018).

More information and instructions regarding the call for abstracts, venue, deadlines, etc. are available at the conference webpage: http://www.greeniupac2020.org/

Please mark your calendar:

October 18-22, 2020 for the 9th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry.

We look forward to welcoming you to Athens and to a fruitful and enjoyable conference.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee,

Prof. Konstantinos Triantafyllidis

Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Tel.: +30 2310 997730;  E-mail:

Chair of the Organizing Committee


4th EuCheMS – Tarragona

The 4th edition of the EuChemS Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (EUGSC-4) was hosted in Tarragona (Spain) at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona (Spain) beween 22-25 September 2019. As there were some parallel sessions, the ICIQ’s library and an auditorium located in the Technology Transfer and Innovation Centre (CTTi) in the Foudation Rovira i Virgili were also used.

This conference continued the successful meetings held in Budapest (2013), Lisbon (2015) and York (2017) and offered opportunities to discuss the latest developments in green & sustainable chemistry, creation of new partnerships and amplification of existing networks between academia and industry.

The principal topics of this conference were green/bio-polymers, photochemistry & catalysis, electrochemistry & catalysis, carbon dioxide valorization and biomass conversion. The program was spread over 4 days and also involved a joint session co-organized by the Division of Chemistry and the Environment (DCE) that focused on water treatment.

Further to this, two industrial sessions were organized with contributions from various representatives from larger and smaller companies, and start-ups discussing the role and impact of sustainable approaches in the commercial sector (BASF, Pirelli, Clariant, Henkel, Zymvol and Ert-Flow).

Prof. Arjan W. Kleij, ICREA professor and Group Leader at ICIQ, was the chair of this event.

Participants

There were a total of 149 participants, 6 of these were plenary speakers and 10 keynote speakers. From the total registered people, 11 came from the industry.

The country of provenance of the participants were:

Belgium: 5China: 1Algeria: 1France: 5Hungary: 2Italy: 13
Canada: 3Germany: 12Spain: 68UK: 7Ireland: 3Japan: 1
Switzerland: 5Denmark: 2Finland: 1Greece: 2India: 2Korea: 5
Holand: 3Portugal: 6Romania: 1Thailand: 1  

A total of 45 people gave an oral communication and there were two different poster sessions with a total of 52 contributions.

On Wednesday, 25th the event finished at 12:30 with the closing ceremony where Prof. Carles Bo gave a speech as the president of the Catalan Society of Chemistry (SCQ) and Prof. Kleij who delivered the WILEY awards (3 prizes of €100 each) for the best posters. The selected winners were:

  • David A. Valverde Barquero – Universitat Jaume I
  • Yasmin Raupp – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
  • Moreshwar Chaudari – Indian Institute of Science Education and Research

Sponsors

This event was organized thanks to the collaboration of ICIQ, which offered its facilities for hosting. Official sponsors were the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ), its Catalan section, the Catalan Chemical Society (SCQ), EuChemS, ChemPubSoc, ChemSusChem, Suschem ES, Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), Associació Empresarial Química de Tarragona (AEQT) and the following companies: ASECOS, BRUKER, WALDNER, METTLER TOLEDO and HENKEL.

Official photo

Prior to the meeting it was decided that the next iteration of the conference (EUGSC-5) will be held in Greece in 2021. This meeting will be in collaboration with the Association of Greek Chemists and the Hellenic Green Chemistry Network.

IUPAC presentation on Green and Sustainable Chemistry

The division’s chair gave a presentation to the recent IUPAC congress in Paris where she discussed the “UN-17 SDGs in view of EuChemS Green and Sustainable Chemistry Division”. The presentation gave examples of the impact of Green and Sustainable Chemistry on the different UN Sustainable Chemistry Goals

The presentation is available in the following links – Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 Link 5 Link 6

International Year of the Periodic Table celebrated at NOVA

The Chemistry Department and the Library at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova (FCT NOVA) embraced a large number of activities to celebrate UNESCO 2019 – International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements and the 150th anniversary of its creation by Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleiev ) with great success and impact in the Campus and in the Community. Details may be consulted in: https://eventos.fct.unl.pt/international-year-periodic-table-2019.

Sir Martyn Poliakoff awarded with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by NOVA

NOVA University Lisbon awarded an honorary doctorate to Sir Martyn Poliakoff, on the occasion of the commemoration of the International Year of the Periodic Table.

The ceremony of conferment of the title of Doctor Honoris Causa was held on 22nd July, at 11:00 am at the Auditorium of NOVA University of Lisbon Rectorate, Campolide Campus.

Ana Aguiar Ricardo,  professor at NOVA School of Sciences and Technologies  and chair of the Division of Green and Sustainable Chemistry, did the laudation of the awardee and Manuel Nunes da Ponte, also Professor at NOVA, was the patron.

In her speech,  Ana Aguiar Ricardo featured Sir Martyn Poliakoff as a global science ambassador and a leader in Sustainable Chemistry for his “major contributions to the development of cleaner processes, reducing the risk of the environmental impact that undermines the sustainability of the planet”. Sir Martyn was one of the first people to suggest that 2019, the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev’s first publication of the Periodic Table, should be declared the International Year of the Periodic Table.

Ana Aguiar Ricardo also pointed out that this award is a “strengthening of science on a world scale”, as Martyn is one of the most recognized chemistry professors in the world, a “superstar of chemistry”, who has inspired and motivated generations of students by getting across the message of Green Chemistry, which he continues to do through his YouTube videos.