abstract

In recent years, environmental sustainability became a critical concern in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry owing to issues related to hazardous waste generation, solvent abuse, toxicity of the by-products and environmental implications of the traditional catalytic methods. The objective of this study was to conduct an analysis of environmental sustainability and catalyst recycling of newly developed green catalysts compared to traditional catalysts using secondary quantitative research method. The study considered the most significant environmental indicators, such as waste generation, toxicity reduction, solvent consumption, catalyst recovery efficiency, number of re-use cycles, cost savings and Environmental Sustainability Index. Data for the analysis were gathered from peer-reviewed literature and environmental sustainability reports. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used as statistical tools to analyze the collected data. It was found that newly developed green catalysts effectively reduce waste generation, amount of hazardous by-products and solvent consumption and increase catalyst recovery efficiency and catalyst recyclability. Economic analysis confirmed that introduction of green catalytic technologies results in economic savings achieved via reduction of raw materials consumption, waste treatment costs and improvement of the process efficiency. Regression analysis showed a statistically significant positive correlation between catalyst recovery efficiency and Environmental Sustainability Index indicating the importance of catalyst recycling in sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing. The study confirms that green catalyst technologies are more environmentally friendly and economically efficient and thus help promote sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing in accordance with the principles of green chemistry.