This symposium will unite various practitioners of Flow Chemistry across a broad range of modalities and track the evolution of Flow highlighting the synergies not only with other technologies but also with the academic community. The latter is showcased by a number of grants awarded in this space, while overlaps exist with the Med Chem, Peptides, Oligos, and Analytical Teams, amongst others.

On the 20th anniversary of the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable, this session will summarize the achievements over the past two decades and outline future needs to deliver on the Roundtable’s strategy of promoting and implementing green chemistry and engineering within the pharmaceutical and allied industries (e.g. agricultural, animal health, etc.) to foster the UN sustainable goal Good Health and Well-Being.

The personal care and household products industry provides a wide range of innovative products designed to delight consumers and help address key aspects of their health and well-being, including personal hygiene, clean conditions in homes and workplaces, and public health. This symposium will highlight a variety of cross-industry innovations within the realm of sustainable chemistry and transparently address remaining barriers and opportunities for accelerated future progress.

Over the past 20 years, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable (ACS GCIPR) has been a global leading voice for advancing green chemistry and engineering in the global pharmaceutical industry. In this awards symposium, winners of the 2025 ACS GCIPR awards (Pete Dunn, CMO Excellence, Data Science and Machine Learning, and the new Discovery Chemistry award) will be presenting their innovations. In addition, academic research breakthroughs funded by GCIPR grants will be presented. 

Heating, Ventilation, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration (HVACR) systems are essential for food preservation, medicine storage, and building comfort, but their reliance on high-global-warming-potential (GWP) refrigerants like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) contributes to 7.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This session explores innovative chemical and engineering advancements to create environmentally sustainable cooling solutions.

Chemistry students are passionate about contributing to a sustainable future, but they feel inadequately empowered to make informed green and sustainable choices that are both relevant and practical. We have heard from industry that chemists of tomorrow should be able to innovate sustainable chemical reactions and processes. This session explores how interdisciplinary and experiential chemical training in economic, social, and environmental sustainability is possible for chemistry students by bringing industry, academic, and community members into the classroom for synergistic and holistic learning.

This symposium will share perspectives from academia and industry to highlight the opportunities, challenges, and scientific developments for cleaning products. Bringing new materials to commercialization touches on many of the 17 topics highlighted by the United Nations’ 2015 call to action to protect the planet: good health & well-being, responsible consumption & production, climate action, life below water, and most importantly, a partnership path to achieve these goals. This partnership reflects crossing boundaries of government, public, and private, and also challenges us as scientists and innovators to identify collaborative approaches to tackling today’s biggest challenges.

This session will highlight examples of safer commercial chemical design from both industry and academia, showcasing the tools used and the cross-disciplinary collaboration that is needed to design for function, minimal hazard, and minimal persistence.

This session will explore the urgent need for a more systematic and scientifically sound means to identify, evaluate, and design safer replacements for hazardous chemicals such as PFAS. It will highlight recent advances in alternatives assessment, hazard evaluation, and informed chemical design, aided by the quantum leaps achieved in computational power and the application of AI to tackle previously intractable problems in biology, medicine, and chemistry.

On the 20th anniversary of the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable, this session will summarize the achievements over the past two decades and outline future needs to deliver on the Roundtable’s strategy of promoting and implementing green chemistry and engineering within the pharmaceutical and allied industries (e.g. agricultural, animal health, etc.) to foster the UN sustainable goal Good Health and Well-Being.

This session will highlight Good Health and Well-Being-focused processes inspired by novel design strategies leading to successful applications of technologies to enable a circular-sustainable economy. It will include case studies to illustrate how sustainable process design plays a key role in the success implementation of novel designs in chemistries, synthetic pathways, and processes. This session will also cover the importance of implementing sustainability as a basic process design criterion to successfully achieve a closed-loop economy.

Significant disparities persist in the distribution of economic opportunities, access to health, well-being, and environmental challenges, particularly entrenching inequalities between industrialized nations and those in the process of industrialization. This symposium aims to spotlight innovative approaches and solutions inspired by Green Chemistry and Green Engineering to address pressing international issues related to sustainable design, climate change, or pollution prevention, with a particular emphasis on positively contributing to human health and well-being from both physical and mental perspectives.

This symposium will focus on Green and Sustainable Chemistry research through collaboration between Japan and the US. It will also introduce innovative research in Japan, both from academia and industry.

Abstracts submitted to the poster session must meet the definition of green chemistry or green engineering, have a potential impact on the field, demonstrate development of an idea, be original, and showcase conclusions supported by data.

The Green Chemistry Challenge Awards has been a collaborative effort between the ACS and the EPA for nearly three decades. More than 140 winners have been recognized in 28 years. At the 2025 GC&E Conference, we will celebrate the 2024 Green Chemistry Challenge Awards winners and provide them an opportunity to share their award-winning green chemistry.

As green chemists, we recognize chemistry’s dual capacity to harm and heal the environment and have embraced innovative strategies to reduce risks. However, we have yet to unlock its untapped potential to address environmental justice issues or drive innovation to empower, educate, and protect those most impacted. This symposium will build the capacity of the green chemistry community to understand, measure, and improve environmental justice measures that will advance research, educate future generations, and create sustainable solutions.

The goal of this symposium is for our speakers to share which green chemistry resources they are using in their classrooms or laboratories, why they are using them, and how.

Catalysts have the potential to eliminate waste from synthesis methods, both by preventing the use of stoichiometric reagents and by preventing the formation of unwanted by-products. In order to improve the selectivity of the catalysts and drive the desired reactions and processes, the two other pillars of activity and efficiency must also be considered.

Green Chemistry experts have an opportunity to bridge the gap in improving Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) outcomes and reducing burdens associated with solvent use, shipping challenges, spill identification and cleanup, and many other scenarios. By increasing the partnership between EHS concerns and sustainability goals, green chemistry can become embedded as a core part of lab safety culture—so green chemistry truly becomes just chemistry. A proactive approach to health and safety – using green chemistry tools and safer chemicals rather than reactionary measures – will benefit both lab workers and the planet in the long run.

This session will explore recent advances in alternative reaction systems that offer sustainability advantages over conventional solvent-intensive systems. Topics may include chemistry in water, biocatalysis, mechanochemistry, electrochemistry, and photochemistry. The session will focus on recent work to overcome practical challenges to applying these reaction systems in pharmaceutical manufacturing. In particular, speakers will highlight the vital role of analytical chemistry in confirming product integrity, purity, and waste stream assessment to enable the implementation of these new and emerging technologies.

Sustainability requires collective efforts from all of us to innovate in the face of declining natural resources. This symposium aims to showcase cutting-edge green chemistry innovations in the production of structure-complex building blocks or intermediates to minimize environmental footprint (scope 3 emissions). The session will highlight contributions from UNDP/EPA, Pharma, biotech, CROs, CDMOs, and academic researchers on the more efficient and sustainable ways to manufacture early intermediates/raw materials.

This session will explore the challenges industries face in meeting current and future regulatory and public pressures. As understanding grows about how chemicals impact the environment and public health, regulations are expanding globally, with the EU Green Deal serving as a key example. These regulations are influencing product development not just in Europe, but worldwide. Alongside decarbonization efforts, companies must stay compliant with emerging legislation and address public concerns about materials of concern. The evolving regulatory landscape demands that industries be nimble and proactive in phasing out harmful and hazardous chemicals. In addition to identifying technical solutions, companies must engage with regulatory bodies and the public to ensure data-driven regulations are implemented.

The goal of this symposium is to showcase curricular innovators who are working to equip the next generation of chemists with expertise in green and sustainable chemistry. The session will explore innovative pedagogical frameworks that integrate green chemistry with a particular focus on higher-level knowledge and skills directly relevant to U.N. Sustainable Development Goal #3 – Good Health and Well-Being.

The functionality of science education, especially for people who have been historically and contemporarily oppressed, must explicitly address social problems. In some classrooms, this means engaging youth in complex conceptualizations and conversations around social justice science issues specific to their everyday lived experiences. This workshop focuses on using the Youth Participatory Science Framework to support science teachers’ development of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned unit that focuses on a social justice science issue.

The initiation or sustainment of chemical transformations by mechanical forces, known as mechanochemistry, represents an exciting synthetic methodology for the design of novel molecules and materials. To promote long-lasting and systemic changes, a connection between teaching, research, and service approaches can further advance the application of mechanochemistry in academia and industry with the goals of achieving a healthier planet. This symposium will focus on diverse approaches based on mechanochemistry for the development of greener processes and products.

This symposium is the third in a series of ACS symposia on natural polymers, taking stock of inspiration and lessons learned from the technological and commercial growth of plastics in the 20th century. Fostering collaborations, creating synergies, and securing funding are essential to accelerate the discovery, mass production, and implementation of natural polymers as the 21st-century material. This symposium will build on the growing momentum of recent engagements with companies, academics, and NGOs interested in developing relevant chemistries.

Sustainability awareness has increased throughout the chemical and biochemical industries. This awareness has resulted in a desire to improve production processes using greener approaches. This session will share technological advances to reduce the environmental impact of biomolecule production. It will also include sustainability advances in solid phase peptides synthesis, hybrid approaches to peptide production, recombinant peptide and peptein production, protein production, and analysis methods enabling these advances.

Nature uses photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, and lessons from algae, methanotropes, and other biological systems can provide valuable insights. What can human ingenuity do to circularize carbon from CO2 to CH4 and other chemical feedstocks? This session focuses on advancements in chemistry research, engineering design, and scale-up for the photo- and electro-reduction of carbon dioxide. Abstract submissions showcasing innovative research, engineering breakthroughs, or practical applications in this field are encouraged.

New manufacturing methods, chemical processes and separation capabilities, and approaches to optimize how plastics cycle through the industrial supply chain are enabling a more circular economy. However, while demand for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and business leaders to facilitate this transition is increasing, undergraduate institutions lack the resources needed to train future generations of students to meet these needs. This session will feature National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) grant recipients who have worked to support the development of curricular components that address polymer circularity as well as a discussion by invited panelists focused on workforce development.

This session, presented by members of the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable, will cover topics such as in silico tools to filter compound designs to reduce the number of compounds being synthesized, direct to biology-type technologies, practical methods to carry out ‘greener chemistry,’ such as novel methodologies for classical reaction types, new purification methods, alternative reagents to avoid toxic/environmentally damaging reagents, and reaction miniaturization efforts.

This session will feature illustrative case studies from a diverse range of industries, offering insights into the practical applications of sustainable product design principles. It will showcase industrial examples that bridge the gap between philosophy and practice, and participants will hear directly from experts involved in these transformative processes, gaining actionable knowledge on designing products that balance environmental responsibility with functional and market success.

This symposium will address challenges in this field by applying the principles of green chemistry and engineering towards safer monomer design and polymer synthesis; furthering understanding of the fundamental structure-property relationships of the chemicals, monomers, and resins utilized to produce renewable, performance-advantaged polymers for various applications; and focusing on recycling/valorizing consumer plastic waste with greener and safer methods.

This workshop examines the role of green chemistry in protecting human and environmental health from Scope 3 emissions at the intersection of causation (e.g., detoxification, defossilization) and accountability (e.g., reporting, measurement). This duality of causation and accountability represents a widespread gap responsible for barriers to reducing meaningful chemistry-based carbon emissions.

The development of new synthetic methodologies and strategies has been the cornerstone upon which sustainable industrial processes are built. The pure research advances arising from academia fuel the world’s industrial innovation while also training the scientific leaders of tomorrow. This special session highlights the research of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars across the broader, global organic chemistry community, which has the potential to impact sustainable industrial chemistry.

Designing energy-efficient, low carbon intensity catalytic conversion technology has become a focal point for achieving long-term sustainability. There is a great need and large opportunity to discover and deploy green and sustainable catalytic pathways to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). This symposium will bring together experts from academia, industry, and regulatory bodies to discuss current advancements and identify R&D challenges and innovations in the field of aviation fuel decarbonization.

Due to the high energy density of diesel and marine fuel, replacing them with alternative renewable energy sources poses a significant challenge. Advancements in renewable hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, and biomass conversion and upgrading technologies present substantial opportunities for the diesel and marine fuel market. Renewable and sustainable fuels offer a promising solution for reducing carbon emissions in the near and medium term.

Chemical recycling, particularly for polyesters like PET and PLGA, offers a promising route to recover monomers for indefinite reuse, while biobased polymers could reduce plastics’ carbon footprint. However, bioplastics face economic and technical challenges, and misunderstandings about biodegradability further complicate their adoption. This session invites abstracts on innovative strategies to address these challenges, including advances in chemical recycling, biobased polymer development, biodegradability studies, microplastic mitigation, and innovative end-of-life strategies.

Improving global health is a superb multidisciplinary challenge that requires scientists from all over the world and from different disciplines to collaborate. Catalysis, synthetic chemistry, and innovative technologies play a game-changing role in the challenging yet fascinating route to the preparation of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). This symposium will generate dialog on urgent issues with a focus on reducing the cost of production and making life-saving APIs more accessible in developing countries.

This symposium will focus on strategies of researcher empowerment to engage in creating a safer, sustainable laboratory environment and general community-based efforts to improve safety and sustainability culture within academic settings.

Celebrating students and instructors who are doing impactful, innovative work in green chemistry or green engineering, this symposium features invited presentations from a sub-section of ACS GCI green chemistry awardees.