Comment by logifail
4 years ago
> Where I have chemical structure X, and a system generates the process steps and chemicals needed to produce X.
Undergraduate chemistry students spend a fair amount of time learning how to look at a novel structure X and by disconnecting "backwards" it into simpler components, deduce a route by which it might be synthesed "forward" in the laboratory from readily available starting materials.
There's an excellent book on this, "Organic Synthesis: The Disconnection Approach", by Stuart Warren.
Interesting.
Were / are you a chem major?
Any other major topics or readings you could recommend for someone wanting a general understanding of key concepts in modern chemistry? I'd suppose generally: materials, synthesis, o-chem, and chem-eng.
My own background: began a hard-science degree. One year undergrad uni chem.
The field is called "process chemistry". A very big thing in pharma:
> Process chemists take compounds that were discovered by research chemists and turn them into commercial products. They “scale up” reactions by making larger and larger quantities, first for testing, then for commercial production. The goal of a process chemist is to develop synthetic routes that are safe, cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and efficient.
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/chemical-sciences...
Thanks, though my read is that this is not just pharma, but applies to numerous fields. Say, o-chem, semiconductors, nanoparticles, and more.