by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here)
Just about the time I become hopeless about the wreck we’ve made of our Earth, I read about a ground-breaking innovation or discovery. Then I’m reminded that the human species is amazingly resourceful. We are good at extracting ourselves from messes. Enter a new way to build molecules.
American Dr. David W.C. MacMillan and German Dr. Benjamin List split the 2021 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, announced last October. Individually and simultaneously, they invented an ingenious way to build molecules that is safer, cheaper, and more environmentally benign.
The approach is already being used to make a variety of compounds including pesticides that decay more readily in the environment. An antiviral and an anti-anxiety medication are also being produced using the new methodology.
The process they created employs different catalysts that allow scientists to produce some molecules “more cheaply, efficiently, safely and with significantly less hazardous waste,” according to the Stockholm announcement. Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede, a member of the Nobel panel, called it a “truly elegant tool.”
“It’s already benefiting humankind greatly,” she said.
H.N. Cheng, president of the American Chemical Society, referred to the development as a “new magic wand.” The chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Johan Aqvist, said he and others wondered why they didn’t think of it before.
I must admit that a half a century after my only chemistry class, I didn’t remember much about catalysts. Catalysts speed up the slow pace of molecule formation by increasing the frequency of collisions among molecules without changing their physical or chemical properties.
Metals make good catalysts, especially “transition metals” which easily lend or take electrons from other molecules. Consequently, metal catalysts are essential in the industrial processes that employ chemical reactions to transform raw materials into manufactured items.
Using metals results in significant environmental costs. Metals from manufacturing processes accumulate and leach into the environment and can be hazardous. In contrast, the catalysts designed by MacMillan and List in 2000 are small organic molecules.
Organic molecules break down more easily and are significantly less expensive than metals. The process could revolutionize some manufacturing processes.
This discovery gave me hope not only for cleaner manufacturing, but for further discoveries that allow us to move toward an economy that works sustainably with Earth’s resources. That can happen by supporting research in specific areas such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and product design.
Equally important is open-ended research such as the work of both MacMillan at Princeton University and List at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Germany.
List, for instance, was not seeking to answer a specific hypothesis, but rather asking a simple “what if” question. If he could devise a way of making medicines faster in a way that didn’t require lots of metal catalysts, he reasoned, the process would be safer for both workers and the planet.
He had no idea his hunch was more than just a “stupid idea” — until it worked. In that stunning moment, List revealed, “I did feel that this could be something big.”
Scientists at this littoral zone bathe alternately in tides of methodical devising and creative innovation. Exploring esoteric hunches and tangents, their eureka moments can lead to tangible outcomes which are enormously useful.
The ultimate result, in their labs or another’s, can be a better mouse trap, a cancer cure, a or a new way to catalyze greener molecules.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.