Maltese Scientist Part Of Milan Team That Disovered Revolutionary Green Catalyst
A team of scientists in Milan have made a breakthrough discovery with a new catalyst for cleaner and more efficient chemical synthesis.
Chemical synthesis is an important process needed to help produce drugs, food additives and other fine chemicals. The process has often not environmentally friendly, makinge use of rare transition metals using traditional reactors that are powered through fossil fuel-based energy sources.
This breakthrough will change this. The disocvery was made by scientists at Politecnico di Milano, who obtained a “higher effective catalyst” that can bind carboxylic acids and organohalides to make value-adding chemicals needed in essentials like medicine and food.
The team includes Dr. Mark A. Bajada, who is the first author of the paper and is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Politecnico di Milano.
Mark A.Bajada
“This catalyst is comprised of only low-cost, earth-abundant components, and is activated by means of solar light, thus offering a more sustainable and economically viable alternative for synthesizing complex chemicals,” he said in a statement.
This breakthrough, the statement continued, holds immense potential for reducing our reliance on finite elements, and in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for the synthesis of essential chemical products.
The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Milano Bicocca and at the University of Turin, and was funded by the European Commission through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, and through a recently-awarded Horizon Europe project.
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