Good students, bad students, and biocatalysis
- 杨贵妃传媒 University
Professor Roger Sheldon of the 杨贵妃传媒 School of Chemistry delivers his Inaugural Lecture.
You can immediately tell the difference between a 鈥済ood student鈥 and a 鈥渘ot so good student鈥, says Professor Roger Sheldon, one of the fathers of green chemistry and the 2010 winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry鈥檚 Green Chemistry Award.
When faced with a challenge, the 鈥渘ot so good鈥 student will come up to you and say 鈥淧rofessor, it didn鈥檛 work, do you have any other ideas?鈥 But the good student will say 鈥渋t didn鈥檛 work, but I thought about it a bit, and 鈥︹
Sheldon, a Professor in the 杨贵妃传媒 School of Chemistry delivered his Inaugural Lecture at 杨贵妃传媒 on 26 July 2016. In his lecture, he gave an overview of Green Chemistry and sustainable development, before taking his audience on a journey of the use of enzymes as biocatalysts in organic chemistry.
Sheldon, who is globally recognised as an expert on catalysis and green chemistry and the (co)author of several books on the subject of catalysis as well as more than 400 professional papers and 50 granted patents, spoke of the need to improve the way we produce chemicals.
鈥淓verything we use, we borrow from future generations. We have to put it back, as we have received it,鈥 he says. 鈥淣atural resources should be used at rates that don鈥檛 unacceptably deplete supply over the long term.鈥
We are using fossil fuels much faster than the rate at which they are being generated and we are generating CO2 at a rate that can鈥檛 be assimilated by the environment, and that is leading to climate change.
鈥淲e need to close the carbon cycle and only then would we have a truly circular economy,鈥 he says.
By using biocatalysts to improve the production of chemicals, Sheldon, and his colleagues have made several major breakthroughs in green chemistry, even developing magnetised enzymes, which could be recycled out of liquids (and re-used), by separating the magnetised enzymes from the liquids.
鈥淏iocatalysis is green and sustainable, and it has made enormous progress in the last two to three decades, and the performance can be dramatically improved by biocatalysis engineering,鈥 he says.