Find principle of green chemistry to show protection of selective group is not advantageous.

Find principle of green chemistry to show protection of selective group is not advantageous.
  1. Use of renewable feed stock
  2. Reduce number of derivatives
  3. Use of catalysis
  4. Design for degradation

Solution

Reducing derivative generation is a core principle of green chemistry that disfavors protection of selective groups. Protection introduces additional synthetic steps through derivatization, requiring supplementary reagents and generating avoidable waste without contributing to molecular complexity.

Evaluating the principles:

The use of protecting groups constitutes unnecessary derivatization, directly contravening the principle to minimize such steps. This approach increases material consumption, energy expenditure, and waste production without synthetic necessity.

While renewable feedstocks, catalytic processes, and degradable design represent valuable green chemistry objectives, they do not specifically address the inefficiencies inherent in protection/deprotection sequences.

Thus, protection of selective groups is disadvantageous under the principle of derivative reduction.

Asked in: MHT CET 2025 (05 May Shift 2)

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