Like most manufacturing sectors, the pharmaceutical industry has a sizeable carbon footprint to tackle if the world is going to make meaningful steps in battling climate change.
In the pharmaceutical industry, one big issue is how many drugs are manufactured using chemical precursors derived from crude oil. That includes basic over-the-counter painkillers like paracetamol and ibuprofen, which are produced in hundreds of thousands of tonnes and consumed by millions of people every year.
Now chemists from the University of Bath have found a way to make production considerably more green. Rather than leaning on crude oil, the process is replaced with the biorenewable β-pinene, which is a component from turpentine.
Better still, it happens to be something that the paper industry generates as waste. More than 350,000 metric tonnes are generated by the industry every year, even at a time when our communications are increasingly digital.
It might not just be painkillers, either. The team were also able to synthesise a range of other precursor chemicals from turpentine including 4-hydroxyacetophenone. That’s a building block towards beta-blockers and salbutamol for asthma inhalers, as well as being used in perfume and cleaning products.
“Using oil to make pharmaceuticals is unsustainable – not only is it contributing to rising COâ emissions, but the price fluctuates dramatically as we are greatly dependent on the geopolitical stability of countries with large oil reserves, and it is only going to get more expensive,” said Dr. Josh Tibbetts, a research associate from Bath University’s chemistry department.
“Instead of extracting more oil from the ground, we want to replace this in the future with a ‘bio-refinery’ model.
There is, however, a figurative fly in the ointment. The production process is currently more expensive than using the crude oil derivative which would likely see consumers paying a “slightly higher” price for plant-derived painkillers.
While some consumers will happily take the hit for more sustainable business practices, it’s the last thing that those struggling to make ends meet will want to hear in the amid a gruelling cost-of-living crisis.
