Tools and techniques

Reagent guides

The selection of synthetic routes and appropriate reagents is a critical component of chemistry, as it directly influences the efficiency, safety and environmental impact of a chemical process. Reagent selection guides have been developed to help chemists choose reagents that are environmentally friendly, practical for scaling up, and versatile for various chemical reactions. The concept was created by scientists at Pfizer (Alfonsi et al., 2008), and uses Venn diagrams to visually represent how different reagents meet three key criteria: Greenness (linked to environmental sustainability), Scalability (safety in large quantities), and Wide Utility (broad reaction scope). Reagents that satisfy all three criteria are considered ideal and appear in the center of the diagram. 

A variety of examples are hosted on the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Reagent Guides. The platform offers deeper insights into the chemical transformations. Two examples will be covered in the subsequent pages: reductive amination and oxidation (ACS, 2024). Also be aware that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have also developed reagent selection guides in a tabular format (Adams et al., 2013). The example of acids and bases is also featured in this module (Henderson et al., 2015).