Two of the most popular painkillers in the world — paracetamol and ibuprofen — have been developed by a team of researchers from the University of Bath’s Department of Chemistry and Institute for Sustainability using an ingredient found in pine trees and another waste by the paper industry.
As the world strives to achieve Net Zero, it may not be widely known that many common pharmaceuticals are produced using chemical precursors derived from crude oil.
The Bath research team has created a technique for producing dozens of pharmaceutical precursors from biorenewable pinene, turpentine’s waste byproduct from the paper industry( annual production & gt, 350, 000 tons ).
They were successful in turning pinene into the two common painkillers paracetamol and ibuprofen, which are made on scales weighing 100,000 tons per year.
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