Green Chemistry of Ibuprofen

By: Dillon and Jihan

 Green Chemistry
Green chemistry, alternatively referred to as sustainable chemistry, is a category of chemistry which
singularly specialises on incorporating environmentally/human friendly and sustainable methods
during the development of various forms of products reducing the manifestation of hazardous
substances as by-products throughout the entirety of the products’ design/creation process,
manufacturing, application and disposal event.
 The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry
Green chemistry is primarily applied within the primary, secondary and quaternary sectors of task
for determining new alternative pathways of reducing on the usage of primary materials/resources,
hazard production as by-product and overall expenses for the development of products at hand
which is why when applying Green chemistry these sectors must abide by the subsequent
principles:
 Atom Economy
Atom economy/atom efficiency is a typology of chemical formulae utilised to determine the
aggregate quota of utilitarian product configurated during a chemical reaction which is why
inefficacious chemical reactions usually possess low atomic economy whereas efficacious chemical
reactions usually fabricate products with high atomic economy by depleting fewer natural resources
and additionally producing low waste as by-product.
 Ibuprofen
Ibuprofen is a typology of pharmaceutical of drug projected to function as painkiller, anti-fever and
anti-inflammatory medicinal which would be usually acquired without the request of any sort of
medical prescriptions.
• Boot’s Synthesis
Throughout the later-half of the 20th century Ibuprofen was industrially synthesised by the British
company ‘Boots’ through their ‘Brown synthesis’ process, within this patent they announced that
their synthesis of Ibuprofen would be held in six primary steps, starting from the usage of the
compound 2-methylpropylbenze which possess a similar carbon skeleton to the Ibuprofen obtained
in the final process.
2-methylpropylbenze
 The Problem With The Brown
Synthesis
The primary complication with the usage of the ‘Brown Synthesis’ is that a plethora of the
reactants’ atoms are not incorporated within the final chemical formula for Ibuprofen as they
usually manifest themselves as inessential by-products, because of this factor the ‘Brown Synthesis’
usually produces Ibuprofen with an atom economy around 40% where 60% of the entire reactants
manifest as waste.
With over 30 million samples of ibuprofen produced each year, it is estimated that usually over
35 000 000 million kg of waste is produced by Boot’s synthesis.
 Green Synthesis And Its Success
Subsequently after the disclosure of Boot’s patent, the company ‘BHC’ decided to utilise a much
more eco-friendly methodology for the production of Ibuprofen which led them to create the
‘Green Synthesis’ process, where they stated that their strategy for the development of Ibuprofen
would be held in 3 primary steps rather than 6 and would also utilise the same starting materials as
the ‘Brown synthesis’.
The new synthesis was considered a guaranteed success as it produced less waste products and it
hand almost the double atomic economy of Boot’s synthesis reaching the value of 77%; the success
behind the ‘Green Synthesis’ process was because BHC would use a true catalyst HF ( hydrogen
fluoride ) with would not produce any form of waste products during reaction, in comparison Boot’s
would use a false catalyst AlCl3 ( aluminium trichloride ) which during reaction would convert into a
hydrated form which would have to be disposed inside of landfills.