The 2024 top ten emerging technologies in chemistry

IUPAC has released the 2024 Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry. The goal of this initiative is to showcase the transformative value of chemistry and to inform the general public about the potential of chemical sciences to foster the well-being of Society and the sustainability of our planet.

The Jury-an international panel of scientists with a varied and broad range of expertise-reviewed and discussed the diverse pool of nominations of emerging technologies submitted by researchers from around the globe and selected the final top ten, covering a range of fields from synthesis and polymer chemistry to health and machine learning.

These technologies are defined as transformative innovations in between a discovery and a fully-commercialized technology, having outstanding potential to open new opportunities in chemistry, sustainability, and beyond.

The 2024 finalists are (in alphabetical order): Active Adsorption, Aptamers, Bioinspired Nanofluidic Iontronics, Electrochemical Nitrogen Cycle, Frustrated Lewis Pairs, Hydration Lubrication, KRAS Inhibitors, MXenes, Neural Network Potentials and Triboelectric Nanogenerators.

This year again, the selection promotes cross-collaboration in chemistry to create exciting emerging technologies that bridge the gap between academia and industry, while continuing the current competitiveness of chemical manufacturers. The technology readiness level varies along the different solutions-nevertheless, all show a provocative promise to reimagine our world and our society. The new additions grow the list of emerging technologies to sixty.

The 2024 Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry are further detailed in a feature article published in the October issue of Chemistry International (CI). Fernando Gomolln-Bel, the author of that feature, concludes by recognizing that "It is fascinating that, year after year, the "Top Ten" uncover chemical technologies with a true potential to transform our world." He added that "it reflects the real diversity of chemistry as the connecting science, a catalyst across disciplines that can and will accelerate sustainable solutions for our society."

The first selection of the Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry was released in 2019 as a special activity honoring IUPAC's 100th anniversary. The results were published in the April 2019 issue of Chemistry International, 41(2), pp. 12-17, 2019. The search for the next Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry has already begun.

Panel of judges for the 2024 Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry

Chair, Michael Droescher, (German Association for the Advancement of Science and Medicine), Jorge Alegre-Cebollada (Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares, Spain), Mamia El-Rhazi, (Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco), Ehud Keinan (Technion, Israel), Javier Garcia Martinez (Universidad de Alicante, Spain), Rai Kookana (CSIRO Land & Water, Australia), Juliane Sempionatto (Rice University, TX, USA), Molly Shoichet (University of Toronto, Canada), Zhigang Shuai (Tsinghua University, China), Natalia P. Tarasova (D. I. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology, Russia), Kira Welter (Wiley-VCH, Germany), and Bernard West (Life Sciences Ontario, Canada)

» The April 2019 issue of Chemistry International

» The search for the 2025 Top Ten

Source: IUPAC