Arjan W. Kleij

Arjan W. Kleij

Arjan W. Kleij
Position

Group leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) & ICREA Fellow

Topics

A method is developed to recycle plastic waste into a base molecule for cancer drugs

Recycling household PET waste—such as plastic bottles—using a new chemical process could generate a compound useful for synthesizing drugs, according to a study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The team discovered that, thanks to semi-hydrogenation, the waste could be broken down into a compound called EHMB, which is key to producing the cancer drug imatinib, a chemotherapy drug called procarbazine, and the insecticide fenpyroximate.

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