Applying green chemistry to the photochemical route to artemisinin

Amara, Zacharias; Bellamy, Jessica F. B.; Horvath, Raphael; Miller, Samuel J.; Beeby, Andrew; Burgard, Andreas; Rossen, Kai; Poliakoff, Martyn; George, Michael W.

Abstract

Artemisinin is an important antimalarial drug but, currently, the environmental and economic costs of its semi-synthetic production are relatively high. Most of these costs originate in the final chemical steps which follow a complex acid- and photo-catalysed route with oxygenation by both singlet and triplet oxygen. We demonstrate that applying the principles of green chemistry can lead to innovative strategies which avoid many of the problems in current photochemical processes. The first strategy combines the use of liquid CO2 as solvent and a dual-function solid acid/photocatalyst. The second is an ambient temperature reaction in aqueous mixtures of organic solvents; the only inputs are dihydroartemisinic acid, O2, and light — the output is pure, crystalline artemisinin. Everything else — solvents, photocatalyst and aqueous acid — can be recycled. Some aspects developed here through green chemistry are likely to have wider application in photochemistry and other reactions.

Citation

Amara, Z., Bellamy, J. F. B., Horvath, R., Miller, S. J., Beeby, A., Burgard, A., …George, M. W. (2015). Applying green chemistry to the photochemical route to artemisinin. Nature Chemistry, 7(6), 489-495. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2261

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 9, 2015
• Online Publication Date: May 11, 2015
• Publication Date: 2015-06
• Deposit Date: Feb 28, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 26, 2020
• Journal: Nature Chemistry
• Print ISSN: 1755-4330
• Electronic ISSN: 1755-4349
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 489-495
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2261
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4050142
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.2261
• Additional Information: Received: 27 January 2015; Accepted: 9 April 2015; First Online: 11 May 2015; : The authors declare no competing financial interests.