Peace C. Nwafor
AI4Green4Students: Promoting Sustainable Chemistry in Undergraduate Laboratories with an Electronic Lab Notebook
Nwafor, Peace C.; Gurung, Shason; van Krimpen, Philip; Schnaubert, Lenka; Jolley, Katherine; Pearman-Kanza, Samantha; Willoughby, Cerys; Hirst, Jonathan D.
Authors
Shason Gurung
Philip van Krimpen
Dr LENKA SCHNAUBERT Lenka.Schnaubert@nottingham.ac.uk
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Dr KATHERINE JOLLEY KATHERINE.JOLLEY@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Samantha Pearman-Kanza
Cerys Willoughby
Professor JONATHAN HIRST JONATHAN.HIRST@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
PROFESSOR OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY
Abstract
AI4Green is an open-source, machine-learning-powered electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) developed to help chemists mitigate environmental impacts, particularly within the pharmaceutical sector. This study presents AI4Green4Students, a pedagogically adapted version designed to foster sustainable laboratory practices. The AI4Green4Students ELN includes features for sustainability assessment, data documentation, and analysis, aiming to equip students with skills for modern, sustainable laboratory practices. User feedback, gathered through questionnaires and interviews, informed the initial development and subsequent refinements of the application. Implementation in a Year 3 undergraduate chemistry lab project indicated improved adherence to sustainable practices, suggesting that the ELN supports the integration of sustainable chemistry into laboratory teaching. Future efforts will expand AI4Green4Students to include additional experiments to broaden its applicability across undergraduate chemistry courses, as well as integrate machine learning tools to enhance data analysis capabilities.
Citation
Nwafor, P. C., Gurung, S., van Krimpen, P., Schnaubert, L., Jolley, K., Pearman-Kanza, S., Willoughby, C., & Hirst, J. D. (2025). AI4Green4Students: Promoting Sustainable Chemistry in Undergraduate Laboratories with an Electronic Lab Notebook. Journal of Chemical Education, 102(7), 2720-2731. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01393
| Journal Article Type | Article |
|---|---|
| Acceptance Date | May 21, 2025 |
| Online Publication Date | Jun 5, 2025 |
| Publication Date | Jul 8, 2025 |
| Deposit Date | Jun 12, 2025 |
| Publicly Available Date | Jun 13, 2025 |
| Journal | Journal of Chemical Education |
| Print ISSN | 0021-9584 |
| Electronic ISSN | 1938-1328 |
| Publisher | American Chemical Society |
| Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 2720-2731 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01393 |
| Keywords | Green Metrics, ELN, Sustainable Chemistry, Undergraduate Laboratory, Collaborative Learning |
| Public URL | https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/50163047 |
| Publisher URL | https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c01393 |
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Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under CC-BY 4.0
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