Cristiano Soleo Funari^1*, Daniel Rinaldo², Vanderlan da Silva Bolzani³, Robert Verpoorte⁴, Leonardo de Oliveira Sartori¹, Lucas Apolinário Chibli¹, Bruna Ribeiro de Lima¹, Serhat Sezai Cicek⁵, Verena Spiegler⁶

cristiano.funari@unesp.br

1-Green Biotech Network, School of Agricultural Sciences, São Paulo State University, Av. Universitária , 3780, Botucatu, SP, 18610-034, Brazil. 2-Green Biotech Network, School of Sciences, São Paulo State University, Bauru, SP, 17033-360, Brazil. 3- NuBBE, Institute of Chemistry, São Paulo State University, Araraquara, SP, 14800-900, Brazil. 4- Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300RA, The Netherlands. 5- Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, 21033, Germany. 6- Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology and Phytochemistry, University of Münster, Münster, 48149, Germany.

This presentation will begin with an overview of how phytochemists have responded to the principles of green chemistry since 1990, the year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency introduced the Pollution Prevention Act – a landmark initiative widely regarded as a catalyst for enhancing sustainability across various branches of chemistry. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of solvents, which represent a major environmental concern in chemistry as a whole, and in natural products chemistry in particular.  It will be shown that some advances in terms of sustainability have been observed in the extraction stage, but also that they are not yet broadly validated from a process perspective aiming to isolate natural products.  In contrast, purification processes have seen little evolution, with hazardous solvents and suboptimal methodologies still commonly employed. The talk will then highlight some original contributions from the speaker´s research group towards more sustainable natural products chemistry practices. Finally, six recommendations for performing natural products chemistry consistent with the guidelines of green chemistry will be proposed.

Keywords: green solvents, alkaloid extraction and pre-purification, bitter acids extraction

 
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