Scientists have found a way to make paracetamol and ibuprofen from pine trees instead of oil – paving the way for a new generation of environmentally-friendly drugs.
The researchers have also created beta-blocker blood pressure treatments and the asthma inhaler drug, salbutamol, from chemicals found in pine trees.
The researchers used turpentine, a compound found in pine trees which is also a waste product from the paper industry, in place of place of crude oil, to create two of the world’s most common painkillers.
Chemicals derived from oil are a key ingredient for many common pharmaceuticals, producing vast quantities of planet-warming greenhouse gases in the process.
Now, researchers from the University of Bath have developed a method of creating a range of pharmaceutical ingredients from β-pinene, a component of turpentine.
They converted β-pinene into paracetamol and ibuprofen – 100,000 tonnes of each being sold every year around the world.
Around 350,000 tonnes of turpentine is generated in the world by the paper industry – enough to supply the global demand for paracetamol and ibuprofen.
They also synthesised a range of other “precursor” chemicals from turpentine, including 4-HAP (4-hydroxyacetophenone), a key ingredient of drugs including beta-blockers and the asthma inhaler drug, salbutamol, as well as others widely used for perfumes, in plastics and in cleaning products.
“Using oil to make pharmaceuticals is unsustainable – not only is it contributing to rising CO2 emissions, but the price fluctuates dramatically as we are greatly dependent on the geopolitical stability of countries with large oil reserves, and it is only going to get more expensive,” said Josh Tibbetts, of the University of Bath.
“Our turpentine-based biorefinery model uses waste chemical by-products from the paper industry to produce a spectrum of valuable, sustainable chemicals that can be used in a wide range of applications from perfumes to paracetamol,” he added.
Instead of putting chemicals in a large reactor to create separate batches of product, the method uses continuous flow reactors, meaning production can be uninterrupted and easier to scale up.
While the process in its current form may be more expensive than using oil-based feedstocks, consumers may be prepared to pay a slightly higher price for more sustainable pharmaceuticals that are completely plant derived, the researchers suggested.
Dr Tibbetts added: “We have carried out chemical analysis in our lab to verify that they are the same as authentic samples. However we aren’t set up to actually test them in humans, as this would require ethical approval.”
He said there are no plans for commercialisation of the process at the moment as the project is still at an earlier stage “but maybe in future – we are thinking about which companies might be interested.”
Asked how using pine trees instead of oil to make painkillers would reduce CO2 emissions, Dr Tibbetts explained: “The starting materials to make drugs that society currently gets from crude oil are only affordable because they are obtained as side products from the petrochemical industry, which burns oil for fuel.
“If we dramatically reduce the amount of oil we extract from the ground in future – which hopefully will be the case – then the price and availability of these oil-based starting materials will shoot up when they are no longer subsidised by the petrochemical industry. Our turpentine based biorefinery is a potential alternative,” he said.
The research is published in the journal ChemSusChem.
