By: Meredith Oglesby
Christo Sevov, assistant professor for chemistry and biochemistry and core faculty member of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State, recently had his research focusing on phosphine oxides chosen for the cover of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Shuhei Manabe, chemistry and biochemistry, and Curt M. Wong, chemistry and biochemistry are coauthors for the study.
The researchers’ work, Direct and Scalable Electroreduction of Triphenylphosphine Oxide to Triphenylphosphine, focuses on developing a method to recycle phosphine oxides. These triphenylphosphine oxides (TPPO) are produced on multiton scales as byproducts from important reactions in synthesis. With no industrial applications, TPPO is generally discarded rather than burned, because incineration causes acidic flashes that necessitate frequent flue-gas scrubbing. The poor biodegradability of TPPO means that it ends up remaining one of the most common phosphorus-containing compounds in freshwater sources. Studies have linked increased concentrations of these compounds in water to environmental issues, such as algal blooms, that require costly remediation processes, Sevov explains in the publication. In addition, phosphorous itself, used in many industrial applications, has limited global reserves. Consequently, the development of an inexpensive and sustainable method for the recycling of TPPO to TPP is of great interest to the scientific and industrial communities but remains an unsolved challenge.
Sevov’s approach uses electricity to covert the phosphine oxide wastes back into desirable phosphines, reducing the waste stream as well as the need for additional phosphorous.
View Sevov’s work on the cover of the February 12, 2020 edition of JACS.
Meredith Oglesby is a communication assistant at the Sustainability Institute.