The Acid-Base Selection Tool developed by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable aims to enable scientists across industry and academia to choose more sustainable acids and bases. The Acid-Base Tool contains over 200 acids and bases which the user can filter by parameters including pKa (in water or acetonitrile), functional groups, melting point, and boiling point.
The tool also contains scoring for the acids and bases on environment, health, and safety (EHS) and Clean Chemistry aspects. The scoring of the acids and bases was conducted as outlined in the article “Development of GSK's reagent guides – embedding sustainability into reagent selection.” The EHS score is based on hazard statements and occupational exposure limits for the materials, and the Clean Chemistry score is based on an assessment of ease of workup and atom efficiency, among other factors. A combined score is also presented for ease of comparison among the acids and bases.
The tool is intended to serve the scientific community by providing a comprehensive list of acids and bases scientists can use to identify suitable reagents for their specific purpose. In addition, it encourages the selection of acids and bases with the most sustainable properties and helps avoid the use of more problematic ones.