AWARDS
The 21st (2021) Green and Sustainable Chemistry Award Winners
Awarded by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
The Development of Environmentally Benign Process Based on Organocatalyst
Yujiro HAYASHI
Tohoku University
Organocatalyst is a green catalyst without the generation of a metal waste. We discovered that diphenylprolinol silyl ether is an effective organocatalyst, which has been widely used in asymmetric reactions. On the other hand, one-pot operations are an effective green method for carrying out several transformations in a single-pot, while at the same time cutting out several purifications, minimizing chemical waste generation. In this presentation, the organocatalyst-mediated asymmetric reactions and our pot economical syntheses will be described.
Venture Capitals Award
Commercialization of Thin-film Perovskite Solar Cells
Tamotsu HORIUCH, Naoya KATO
EneCoat Technologies Co., Ltd.
Enecoat Technologies is a start-up from Kyoto University established to manufacture and sell perovskite solar cells. The special characteristics of perovskite solar cells make them desirable for many different applications. Based on customer demand, our initial target is the commercialization of power supplies for use in low illumination environments. The company is now working to produce solar cells for this application.
Incentive Award
Bicyclic Tertiary Amine (RZETA) -Based Solvents for NOx Durable CO2 Capture
Atsushi YAMAMOTO, Ryotaro FUJII, Kotaro SAKODA, Hiroshi FUJIWARA, Manabu YANASE
Tosoh Corporation
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) durable bicyclic tertiary amine-based solvents have been developed for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from exhaust gases of thermal power plants or cement plants. A bicyclic tertiary amine, 1,4-Diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane-2-methanol (RZETA) has a high durability against NOx. Furthermore, an aqueous solutions of RZETA blended with appropriate primary and secondary amines were found to be more effective in CO2 absorption and desorption than those of N-methyldiethanolamine blended with primary and secondary amines.
Incentive Award
Development of Waterless Off-set Printing System for Flexible Packaging Realizing VOC Free and Reduction of CO2 Emission
Takejiro INOUE, Yuichi TSUJI, Noboru KOSHIMIZU, Yurika KAWAI, Takayuki KAMEI
Toray Industries, Inc.
"Waterless Offset Printing System for Flexible Packaging" reduces CO2 emission in printing process by max 80% and enables completely VOC-free printing. To achieve the new system, we have developed a novel active ray curing waterless ink, which is water washable, solvent free, and emits oven drying process.
Incentive Award
Development of Heterogeneous Metal Nanoparticle Catalysts for Continuous-flow Organic Synthesis
Tomohiro YASUKAWA
The University of Tokyo
Development of heterogeneous catalysts for organic synthesis has lagged far behind that of homogeneous catalysts. In recent years, toward the realization of a sustainable society, heterogeneous catalysts that can be used for continuous synthesis by the flow methods have been attracting attention. We developed polystyrene-based co-polymer or nitrogen-doped carbon supported metal nanoparticle catalysts for various organic transformation including asymmetric ones and applied them to continuous-flow synthesis.
Incentive Award
CO2 Conversion to Valuable Substance over Solid Catalysts Prepared by Flame Spray Pyrolysis
Shohei TADA(*1), Kakeru FUJIWARA(*2)
(*1)Ibaraki University, (*2)Yamagata University
We developed 60wt% Cu/ZrO2 catalysts prepared by a flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) method to synthesize methanol via CO2 hydrogenation. The FSP-made catalysts possessed many Cu nanoparticles regardless of the Cu high-loading, leading to the enormous number of actives sites for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol.
Incentive Award
Development of Asymmetric Molecular Transformations Using Chiral Organosuperbase Catalysts
Azusa KONDOH
Tohoku University
In the field of chiral Brønsted base catalysis, which is one of the most fundamental and environmentally benign methodologies enabling the direct synthesis of enantio-enriched compounds, a long-standing issue is the expansion of the scope of pronucleophiles applicable to the enantioselective reactions. We report our recent efforts to overcome the issue and expand the scope of viable enantioselective transformations that are available under the catalysis through the development of chiral organosuperbases and their application to enantioselective reactions.