How Radleys can help you reduce your carbon footprint

Findenser

Findenser is an air condenser which can be used to replace water-cooled condensers in over 95% of common chemistry applications.

In 2016, Findenser helped the University of California, San Diego win the Industrial Environmental Association’s Water Conservation Award for saving an estimated 5.7 million litres of water.

Water is one of our planet’s most precious resources and preventing its waste is key to running a sustainable lab. What’s more, treating, supplying and using water requires a large amount of energy and therefore has a carbon footprint.

Heat-On

The Heat-On Block System can be used as an alternative to oil baths when heating round bottom flasks.

This makes it safer but also means there is no oil waste to dispose of, so it is environmentally friendly. A leading green university in Australia chose to use the Heat-On Block System to replace their oil baths and reduce the amount of harmful oil waste they produced.

Heat-On is also more cost effective and can save as much as £1148 over three years.*

*Based on using a four litre oil bath for a two litre flask and carrying out two oil changes per year. Average cost of oil per litre = £133. Average cost of oil disposal per litre = £2. All prices are in £ sterling as of January 2018.

StarFish Work Station

StarFish is a multi-purpose work station that can be used for heating and stirring up to five round bottom flasks at once. This means less energy is used compared to five individual hot plates.

What’s more, it increases productivity and saves space. You can use it instead of an oil bath too, so it won’t generate environmental waste.

Bradford University chose to use StarFish instead of individual water baths and heating mantles, so they could reduce energy, waste and costs. The university is an eco-versity, which means it has a programme in place dedicated to incorporating sustainability across everything it does.

Huber Temperature Control Units

Radleys is the largest distributor of Huber products in the UK.

Huber is a pioneer in the development of environmentally friendly chillers and won the Environmental Prize for Companies 2016. Huber was an early adopter of CFC-free refrigeration machines and has advanced the distribution of natural refrigerants such as CO₂, propane and isobutane.

Huber’s chillers are an environmentally-friendly cooling solution and are powerful enough to ensure highly stable cooling.

They are extremely quiet and energy efficient and conserve mains water because they don’t use a constant flow of tap water, which goes down the drain.

By switching just 5 condensers from tap water to a recirculating chiller, the typical saving is £3000* per year in water charges, which provides a return on investment and also cuts down on water wastage.

*Based on 5 condensers running 8 hours per day, 20 days per month, on a medium flow rate of 5 litres per minute, at 0.1p per litre.

Heidolph Hei-VAP Rotary Evaporators

Heidolph is a leading German manufacturer of premium laboratory equipment and Radleys is a master distributor of the full range of Heidolph products in the UK.

Using Heidolph’s Hei-VAP rotary evaporators in combination with a Huber recirculating chiller unit eliminates the need for single pass water or dry ice condensers. The tight vacuum seal ensures the pump doesn’t have to work constantly to hold a low vacuum, which reduces energy consumption.

Their XL condensers achieve up to 40% higher evaporation rates which increases the efficiency of the distillation process and improves solvent recovery.

Heidolph Distimatic

The Heidolph Distimatic evaporation module allows for continuous, automated distillation.

The evaporation flask is automatically refilled with the feed stock solvent mixture according to your settings. The continuous automatic discharge of condensate allows the solvent to be recycled, which reduces waste and saves money.

The Heidolph Distimatic is used at Bristol University in Professor Kevin Booker-Milburn’s research group to increase their evaporation throughput and reduce their impact on the environment. Dr Luke Elliot from the group said: “The Distimatic saved time, since it fully takes over after pressing a few buttons. It saved money through recycling solvent and allowed more time to be spent focussing on the chemistry.”

GreenHouse Blowdown Evaporator

The GreenHouse Blowdown Evaporator is an environmentally-friendly way to carry out parallel evaporation because it traps solvents, so they are not released into the atmosphere.

It also enables solvent to be reused, which keeps waste down. You can perform parallel evaporation of samples in either 8 or 24 vials, tubes or microtiter plates, which saves time and energy.

To find out more about how our equipment can help make your lab greener call +44 1799 513320 or email [email protected]