The EcoScale

In order to evaluate and select organic synthesis protocols on its scalability, EcoSynth co-developed a semi-quantitative tool, the EcoScale (1). The EcoScale analyses 6 parameters that influence the quality of a reaction (yield, price of reaction components, safety, technical setup, energy requirements, and work up & purification) and gives, similar as the yield, a score on a scale from 1 to 100. In general, protocols that score high on the EcoScale, are better suitable for scale-up (2)

An efficient calculation of the EcoScale can be performed via the web-site http://www.ecoscale.org or via a stand-alone software tool. The free EcoScale Light version can be downloaded here.

EcoScale Light for Windows (v1.2) (.zip, 5MB)

EcoScale Light for Mac OS X (v1.2) (.zip, 12MB)

EcoScale Light for Linux (v1.2) (.zip, 5MB)

(1) EcoScale, a semi-quantitative tool to select an organic preparation based on economical and ecological parameters Koen Van Aken, Lucjan Strekowski, and Luc Patiny Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry 2006, 2, No. 3.

(2) EcoScale, a metric tool to asses the scalability of a reaction protocol early in drug development. Jean-Baptiste Joos, Koen Van Aken, Lucjan Strekowski and Luc Patiny, Poster at EFMC-ISMC 2010, XXIst International Symposium On Medicinal Chemistry, Brussels, Belgium, September 5-9, 2010