# Analysis of hazardous solvent use in patent reactions

An analysis of roughly 1.3 million chemical reactions in patents from 1976 to 2016 found that solvents classed as hazardous rose from about 60% of patented reactions in 1976 to above 70% by 2016, that when regulations restrict a toxic solvent chemists are more likely to switch to another hazardous liquid than to a greener alternative, and that use of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) rose substantially; the analysis drew on an existing USPTO-derived reaction database and used Rxn-INSIGHT, an AI system developed by Dobbelaere that digests chemical databases and answers queries about which reagents, catalysts and solvents to use.

An analysis of roughly 1.3 million chemical reactions in patents from 1976 to 2016 found that solvents classed as hazardous rose from about 60% of patented reactions in 1976 to above 70% by 2016, that when regulations restrict a toxic solvent chemists are more likely to switch to another hazardous liquid than to a greener alternative, and that use of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) rose substantially; the analysis drew on an existing USPTO-derived reaction database and used Rxn-INSIGHT, an AI system developed by Dobbelaere that digests chemical databases and answers queries about which reagents, catalysts and solvents to use.