Atom economy  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to:
navigation, search  Atom economy (atom efficiency) describes the
conversion efficiency of a chemical process in terms of all
atoms involved (desired products produced). In an ideal chemical
process, the amount of starting materials or reactants equals
the amount of all products generated (see stoichiometry) and no
atom is wasted. Recent developments like high raw material (such
as petrochemicals) costs and increased sensitivity to
environmental concerns have made atom economical approaches more
popular. Atom economy is an important concept of green chemistry
philosophy,[1][2][3] and one of the most widely used ways to
measure the "greenness" of a process or synthesis.  Atom economy
can be written as: \text{atom economy} = \frac{\text{molecular
mass of desired product}}{\text{molecular mass of all
reactants}} \times 100% noting that the total molecular mass of
the reactants is the same as the total molecular mass of the
products.  Note that atom econ