A devastating water leak in a nearby chemistry laboratory prompted The Maulide Group at the University of Vienna to team up with Green Labs Austria to research and share a more sustainable solution to water cooled refluxing in the lab
Green Labs Austria is a non-profit association started by students, postdocs and technicians from the Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, at the University of Vienna, to serve as a platform for communication and discussion of sustainability practices within the laboratories. A key aim of Green Labs Austria is to reform how scientists throughout Austria and beyond think about energy and water usage, plastic consumption, recycling and traveling.
Professor Nuno Maulide said: "For many years we had been using oil baths and Liebig water condensers for our reflux reactions. It was a devastating, and costly water leak that prompted us to take action and look for ways to minimise water use, and with that the risk of a similar incident occurring again. It also gave us the ideal opportunity to utilise a more sustainable way of working, which is very important to us.
"Green Labs Austria was enthusiastic about their experience with lab tools from UK-based sustainability specialists, Asynt. As a direct alternative to a water condenser, we have found the CondenSyn air condenser extremely convenient to use and its 'plug-and-play' installation has rendered reaction set up very straightforward. We have also found the CondenSyn air condenser to be very efficient at condensing refluxing solvents – even volatile liquids such as methylene chloride. Swapping out our messy oil baths for DrySyn MULTI oil-free heating plate not only improved user safety, but allowed us to run three reactions simultaneously at the desired temperature, requiring minimal space and only one magnetic hotplate stirrer. This also reduces our energy consumption within the lab. With no loss in agitation efficiency, we have found that the DrySyn warms up our reactions much more rapidly than a common oil bath, and the temperature regulation is excellent. This new heating device is more energy efficient and we no longer have to find a way to dispose of degraded or contaminated oil from our oil baths.”
Dr Kaiser concluded: "The fact that we're saving huge volumes of tap water and not having to dispose of large quantities of waste heating oil allows the Maulide Group to significantly reduce our impact on the environment. The ability to set up our experiments to reflux without concern over water flow rates and extra tubing cluttering up the fume hood is great!"
Get further information on the CondenSyn air condensers and the DrySyn MULTI or contact Asynt on +44-1638-781709 / enquiries@asynt.com.
