Those who have never closely observed the periodic table of the elements, conceived in 1869 by the Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovič Mendeleev, have little grasp of the reality they cross in the short span of organic life we are allowed in this corner of the Universe. “Chemistry is one thing that serves everything. It's there to nurture, it's there to grow, it's there to somehow fit into tangible things,” said writer and chemist Primo Levi. Each element, from Hydrogen (H) to Organesson (Og), each with its atomic number (i.e. the number of protons in the atom) that determines its nature, makes up our universe, our planet, our body, generating energy, materials, harmonies of infinite elegance.
We have been trying to control chemistry for millennia: from fire to fermentation (the first “beers” originated between 7000 and 6600 B.C. in Mesopotamia and the South Caucasus region), through pigments from Lascaux, France, where 17.000 years ago red ochre and yellow ochre based on hematite (Fe₂O₃) and limonite (FeO(OH)·nH₂O) were used, along with manganese minerals such as pyrolusite (MnO₂), charcoal, kaolin and clay.
Since then, we have been able to harness synthesis reactions, solutions, reductions, polymerisations, electrolysis, and fermentations for a myriad of purposes, from food to the production of new materials, from energy to medicine, discovering new elements again and again until the periodic table is completed (and future new elements that may come after the one hundred and eighteenth).
The development of modern chemistry has made possible the complex, prosperous, long-lived (and consumerist) civilization we know today. Without the polymer revolution, we would not have had the boom of the Western middle-class first and the Asian middle-class later. Without the breakthroughs in medicine and agrochemistry, we would still have an average life expectancy of 30-35 years, as was the case in 1924. And without the chemistry of superconducting materials, discovered by Karl Müller and Johannes Bednorz in 1986, there would not be plenty of electronics products and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Without the Haber-Bosch process, we would not have synthesised ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, revolutionising fertiliser production.
Today the world of chemistry is being called to a new revolution, the circular one. From energy efficiency and process decarbonisation to chemical building block innovation, from the circular economy of chemicals to market transformations in polymer chemistry, this issue of Renewable Matter takes a complex and difficult look at this key sector of the industry, called to play its part in the transition.
We start with European Transition Pathways to reduce supply chain impacts and then go on to discover new Chemical-as-a-Service models and the impact of nanotechnology, increasingly used for water treatment and in agriculture. We then take a closer look at the transition of the circular bioeconomy, the contribution of waste-to-chemical and CO2 as chemical building blocks, and the revolution introduced by artificial intelligence in research laboratories.
Yet not forgetting the sometimes disastrous impacts of the chemical industry, as told by dramatic photos from Bhopal, India, 40 years after the largest chemical disaster in history.
“New entities are emerging,” chemical elements that put our planet and our health at risk, explain Sarah Cornell and Patricia Villarrubia-Gomez of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in an exclusive interview with RM Deputy Editor Marco Moro. Microplastics, synthetics, heavy metals, and pharmaceutical compounds (such as antibiotics) are being dispersed into nature instead of treated as waste and reintroduced into the production systems.
Yet another more and more urgent reason we need circular chemistry, the real element missing from our periodic table.
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This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano
Image: Oleg Moroz, Unsplash