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Mar 11

Branching out – Other solvents than Acetone to recycle

We are looking into other solvents to recycle…

Ultimately we would desire the capablility to recycle Petroleum Ether. Depending on the lab staff requirements per day we can use anywhere between 0-10 winchesters of Petroleum Ether. This is a staggering amount of waste, especially considering the vast majority of it is used for column chromatography as a mixed eluent with Ethyl Acetate.

This combination of solvents is perfect for recycling due to the varying differences in boiling point between Ethyl Acetate (77.1) and Petroleum ether (30-40). Other combinations with  Diethyl Ether (34.6) are not really viable.

Unfortunately at this current time we don’t have the capability to recycle Petroleum Ether due to the fact that the manufacturer recommended the use of a chiller. Fingers crossed we may be able to aquire this facility in future, and decrease our waste production further.

There are a list of pre programmed solvents that can be recycled not just Acetone, if you want to find out more, contact me at dw10g10@soton.ac.uk, and we can look into facilitating your requirements.

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