a)

Green Solvents
1) Supercritical CO2
1. Supercritical fluids such as supercritical CO2 and supercritical water etc are used
nowadays as a green solvent as the separation of solvent after obtaining the
products is easy
2. Supercritical CO2 is non inflammable, non toxic and inexpensive. As solubility of
most of the solutes changes near the critical point they can be recovered from
solvent by reducing pressure below critical point
3. Supercritical CO2 is used in the reactions and for this pressure and temperature is
increased beyond Pc and Tc and after the products are obtained solvent is
recovered by reducing pressure
4. So in this manner green solvents obey all the principles of green chemistry and
thus they are eco friendly in nature
2) Ionic Liquids
1. Ionic liquids have the advantage of high boiling point, low vapour pressure, non
infallibility and stability at high temperature
2. Because of all this properties it can be used as a green solvent for any reaction
3. Ionic liquids exist as liquid well below room temperature 200 o C. So temperature
range in which it can be used as a solvent is wide
4. Ionic liquids are liquid salts and not the salts dissolved in liquids
5. E.g.

R1

R4

N+

N+ - Cation
R2
R1, R2, R3, R4 are different alkyl groups i.e. unsymmetrical

R3

Products From Natural Materials

1) Biomass of natural material should be separated into solid and liquid material. Solid
mass can be used as on animal feed and liquid after further fermentation can be
used as starting material for further reactions
2) Products from potato starch are used to make dinner sets. Eco plastic produced from
corn waste can be used for routine packaging like foil or it also can be used for
packaging of T-shirts, show pieces etc.
3) Using natural materials oils can be extracted for e.g. soybean, coconut oil, palm oil
etc which can be used as starting material to produce variety of products like

glycerol, methyl esters of fatty acids etc. These products are then used as a starting
material for various item used in body care pharmaceutical and food industry