Making vanilla flavoring with less pollution
(PHYSorg.com Chemistry)

In small amounts, vanilla flavoring enhances the taste of our baked goods, desserts and ice cream. But making it synthetically, which is the most common route to keeping the ingredient affordable these days, creates a stream of wastewater that requires treatment before it can be released into surface waters. Now researchers report in ACS` journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research a new `greener` way to make vanillin, the primary flavor compound in vanilla.