Applying green chemistry to the photochemical route to artemisinin

Amara, Z.; Bellamy, J.F.B.; Horvath, R.; Miller, S.J.; Beeby, A.; Burgard, A.; Rossen, K.; Poliakoff, M.; George, M.W.

doi:10.1038/nchem.2261

Applying green chemistry to the photochemical route to artemisinin

Amara, Z.; Bellamy, J.F.B.; Horvath, R.; Miller, S.J.; Beeby, A.; Burgard, A.; Rossen, K.; Poliakoff, M.; George, M.W.

Authors

Z. Amara

J.F.B. Bellamy

R. Horvath

S.J. Miller

Professor Andrew Beeby andrew.beeby@durham.ac.uk
Professor

A. Burgard

K. Rossen

M. Poliakoff

M.W. George

Abstract

Artemisinin is an important antimalarial drug, but, at present, the environmental and economic costs of its semi-synthetic production are relatively high. Most of these costs lie 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 that 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 strategy is an ambient-temperature reaction in aqueous mixtures of organic solvents, where the only inputs are dihydroartemisinic acid, O2 and light, and 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., Horvath, R., Miller, S., Beeby, A., Burgard, A., …George, M. (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	Jun 1, 2015
Deposit Date	May 13, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Aug 10, 2017
Journal	Nature Chemistry
Print ISSN	1755-4330
Electronic ISSN	1755-4349
Publisher	Nature Research
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	7
Issue	6
Pages	489-495
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2261