The 2025 Green Chemistry Challenge Award winners will be recognized at a ceremony in Washington DC at the National Academies of Science. RSVP to attend.
Academic Category
Keary M. Engle - The Scripps Research Institute
Air-Stable Nickel(0) for Catalytic Coupling Reactions
Professor Keary M. Engle is being recognized for developing a new class of air-stable nickel catalysts that efficiently convert simple feedstocks into complex molecules, enabling streamlined access to a wide range of functional compounds—from medicine to advanced materials. Unlike earlier generations, Engle’s catalysts are stable in air, eliminating the need for energy-intensive inert-atmosphere storage. This breakthrough makes nickel catalysis more practical and scalable for both academic and industrial applications. As nickel continues to play a growing role in organic synthesis, this advancement marks a major step towards replacing more expensive precious metals like palladium and unlocking nickel’s full potential in synthetic chemistry.
Summary of Technology
A research team led by Professor Keary M. Engle at Scripps Research has developed a novel class of nickel complexes that uniquely combine high reactivity with air stability—traits previously thought incompatible in a single catalyst. Nickel’s low cost, sustainability, and versatile reactivity have made it an attractive alternative to precious metals in chemical synthesis, but traditional nickel catalysts require energy-intensive inert atmosphere handling, limiting their widespread use.
Engle’s air-stable nickel precatalysts overcome these challenges, enabling practical use in both academic and industrial settings. These bench-stable complexes can be activated under standard conditions to generate catalytically active Ni(0) species, facilitating a broad array of cross-coupling reactions. Their robust performance across diverse substrates allows them to rival, and sometimes outperform, palladium-based catalysts in forming carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds, expanding synthetic options for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and advanced materials.
To improve catalyst preparation safety and sustainability, the team developed an alternative electrochemical synthesis that complements the conventional route by avoiding excess flammable reagents. This method offers a safer, more efficient pathway and highlights the growing role of electrochemistry in organometallic catalysis.
Greener Synthetic Pathways Category
Merck & Co., Inc.
A Landmark Process for the Commercial Manufacture of islatravir Via a Nine-Enzyme Biocatalytic Cascade
Merck and Co., Inc. is being recognized for their biocatalytic process to prepare the nucleoside islatravir, an investigational antiviral for the treatment of people living with HIV-1. The original 16-step clinical supply route to islatravir is replaced with a single biocatalytic cascade involving an unprecedented nine enzymes, engineered in collaboration with Codexis, that catalyze conversion of a simple achiral glycerol into islatravir in a single aqueous stream without the need for any workups, isolations, or organic solvents.
Summary of Technology
Chemical cascade reactions, involving the execution of multiple sequential transformations without the isolation of intermediates, have long been used to enhance efficiency and reduce waste in process chemistry. However, recent advances in protein engineering now allow the design of sophisticated artificial biosynthetic pathways that enable unprecedented jumps in molecular complexity to be achieved in a single reaction vessel. Merck has developed a biocatalytic process to prepare the nucleoside islatravir, an investigational antiviral for the treatment of people living with HIV-1. The original 16-step clinical supply route to islatravir is replaced with a single biocatalytic cascade involving an unprecedented nine enzymes, engineered in collaboration with Codexis, that catalyze conversion of a simple achiral glycerol into islatravir in a single aqueous stream without the need for any workups, isolations, or organic solvents. Merck and Co., Inc. has demonstrated the process on a 100 kg scale, which will soon be used for commercial production.
Chemical & Process Design for Circularity Category
Pure Lithium Corporation
Closed-Loop & Green Manufacture of Lithium-Metal Batteries from Domestic Brines
Pure Lithium Corporation is being recognized for its Brine to Battery™ method which produces 99.9% pure battery-ready lithium-metal (Li-M) anodes in one step using electrodeposition technology from real-world brines. Current processes for Li-M are water and energy-intensive, operating over a multinational lithium supply chain. This technology enables co-location of the feedstock, extraction, and manufacturing facility that can accelerate domestic Li-M production.
Summary of Technology
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are utilized to meet global energy demands, but less than 5% of Li-ion batteries are currently recycled. The next, most promising alternative is the lithium metal (Li-M) battery, which offers ten times the maximum theoretical energy density of Li-ion batteries and features a more recyclable anode. Despite these benefits, Li-M batteries have not been realizable due to unsustainable, uneconomic supply chains. Currently, lithium is extracted from brines utilizing open-air or direct lithium extraction, consuming significant amounts of freshwater to produce Li2CO3 salt. Molten salt electrolysis of the salt, followed by energy-intensive extrusion and or physical vapor deposition for battery-grade Li-M anodes. The Brine to Battery™ method produces 99.9% pure battery-ready lithium-metal (Li-M) anodes in one step using electrodeposition technology from real-world brines. The quality is dramatically improved, and the cost is exponentially lower, making Li-M batteries viable for the first time. This technology also enables co-location of the feedstock, extraction, and manufacturing facility, which will accelerate domestic Li-M production.
Design of Safer and Degradable Chemicals Category
Cross Plains Solutions, LLC
SoyFoam™ : A Farm to Fire Solution
Cross Plains Solutions, LLC is being recognized for SoyFoam™, a fire suppression foam consisting of defatted soybean meal derived from soybeans and biobased ingredients, formulated to extinguish Class A and Class B fires. SoyFoam™ not only contains no Per- and Poly Fluoro Alkyl Substances (PFAS) but also is free of fluorine chemicals associated with PFAS, eliminating environmental and health concerns for a safer environment for firefighters, first responders, and local communities.
Summary of Technology
Per- and Poly Fluoro Alkyl Substances (PFAS) have been used for decades in firefighting foams for suppressing fires and for training purposes. Fire departments, first responders, and our communities need safer firefighting foams that are just as effective as the PFAS which cause serious health concerns related to cancer and birth defects. PFAS foams contaminate the environment and end up in the water table and soil, ultimately ending up in the food chain. The main ingredient of SoyFoam™ is defatted soybean meal derived from soybeans, with the remainder of the formulation comprised of biobased ingredients and builders to give its foamability and fire suppression properties for extinguishing both Class A and Class B fires. SoyFoam™ not only contains no PFAS but also is free of fluorine chemicals associated with PFAS, eliminating the environmental and health concerns ultimately creating a safer environment for firefighters, first responders, and local communities.
Small Business category
Novaphos Inc.
Reprocessing of Phosphogypsum
Novaphos Inc. is being recognized for their thermal process to recover and reuse sulfur from phosphogypsum, a waste by-product generated from the wet process to produce phosphoric acid. The accumulation of phosphogypsum waste poses significant hazard to the environment from water contamination and radiological material release. The Novaphos process also produces a solid calcium silicate product that can be used in cement applications over fly ash that is produced as a by-product from coal fired power plants.
Summary of Technology
Phosphorous is crucial to all living organisms, and the use of phosphate fertilizer has been instrumental in bringing food security to the world. The prevalent technology to produce phosphate fertilizer is the wet-acid process, which is burdened with many significant problems: it requires large deposits of high-quality phosphate rock, it consumes significant volumes of sulfur, and it creates large volumes of phosphogypsum waste. The accumulation of phosphogypsum waste poses significant hazard to the environment from water contamination and radiological material release. The Novaphos technology is a thermal process for the reprocessing phosphogypsum that leads to the extraction, recovery and reuse of the contained sulfur. The process also produces a solid calcium silicate product with a much improved release profile for radon gas compared to phosphogypsum waste. Calcium silicate can be used in cement applications over fly ash that is produced as a by-product from coal fired power plants.
Specific Environmental Benefit: Climate Change category
Future Origins
Commercializing Deforestation-Free, Low-Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Drop-in Replacements for Widely-Used Ingredients Traditionally Made From Palm Kernel Oil (PKO)
Future Origins is being recognized for their single-step, whole-cell fermentation-based process to produce C12/C14 fatty alcohols (FALC) from renewable plant-derived sugars. FALC are used in many home and personal care products, but the sourcing of palm kernel oil for FALC can lead to deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. By using plant-derived sugars, the process is estimated to show 68% lower global warming potential compared to FALC derived from palm kernel oil.
Summary of Technology
Tens of thousands of products in a typical supermarket include ingredients made from palm oil, reaching billions of people every day in the $625 billion home and personal care markets. While palm is incredibly useful, it also has significant challenges, including potential deforestation, geographic concentration, and significant greenhouse gas emissions. Future Origin’s technology produces non-palm plant-based C12/C14 fatty alcohols (FALC) using renewable plant-derived sugars. These FALC are produced through a single-step, whole-cell fermentation-based process using engineered, industrially-safe E. coli capable of delivering FALC chain length specificity and the desired chain length distribution. Using plant-derived sugars, the process exhibits an estimated 68% lower global warming potential compared to FALC derived from palm kernel oil. The process aims for large-scale bio-manufacturing in the United States, providing a fully traceable and transparent alternative supply chain that is deforestation-free. Additionally, this approach provides FALC customers with an important alternative supply chain for a key ingredient.
