Hi Reader, ever thought about more sustainable laboratory instruments?
Lower energy consumption, sample volumes, and reagent use - but how can this be achieved without compromising performance?
To show you, today’s sponsor - Waters - shares some unique behind-the-scenes insights.
Over the past two years, I’ve worked with them to create resources that help you reduce the footprint of research.
Here, we explore how improvements in HPLC and MS systems can make your laboratory greener.
Today's Lesson: Innovative Instruments
Discovering what is possible and how it works
Number Of The Day
The Waters Xevo TQ Absolute (a mass spectrometer) saves more than 50% nitrogen compared to the average high-end MS/MS. Over one year, this adds up to 2 592 000 liters of gaseous nitrogen saved if the instrument runs 8 hours a day for 200 days a year. If we assume you run your instrument for at least 10 years, this translate up to $50 000 in costs for liquid nitrogen. In other words, a more sustainable instruments will save resources and a lot of money.
2 592 000
The Secrets Of Greener Instruments
Innovation and optimization are the driver of lower impacts. This is the key idea of today.
For example, Waters' Xevo TQ Absolute XR delivers among the highest sensitivity on the market but saves more than 50% of gas, and over 65% of heat and energy.
But how is it possible to still save such significant amounts of resources?
It’s the investment of companies in substantial technical innovation.
What Makes Instruments Save Energy
One of the most energy-intensive features of an MS is the pumps that generate the internal vacuum in which the analyte moves.
Technical innovations in the design of their MS have enabled Waters to reduce the number of turbo pumps. Instead of 3, they only need 1.
The vacuum pumps are necessary to ensure that analyte ions do not collide with gas molecules inside the mass spectrometer. However, more efficient ion-transfer interfaces, improved conductance-limiting geometries, and optimized pumping pathways allow Waters to reduce the overall number of pumps used.
Fewer pumps, less energy consumption.
By the same token, Waters uses only one energy-saving and maintenance-friendly backing pump.
They feature root pumps which, unlike rotary vane pumps, are oil-free and reduce friction to enable higher efficiency.
This is a rather ancient backing (or roughing) pump just to give you an idea of how it looks. It's the first stage of the vacuum system in a mass spectrometer, used to remove most of the air from the instrument and lower the pressure from atmospheric levels to the rough-vacuum range. This initial pressure reduction allows high-vacuum pumps, such as turbo-molecular pumps, to operate effectively.
Newer pumps achieve similar pumping capacities at around 500W, whereas a pair of traditional oil pumps consume between 1500-3000W.
That is at least a threefold difference - and these enhancements not only save energy but also up to 68% heat!
One Rock, Two Birds
Less heat means less work for air conditioning systems and therefore significantly lower institutional energy consumption.
Remember: HVAC accounts for 40–60% of total lab energy use. With rising temperatures, this becomes even more critical.
Depicted is the variability of energy consumption depending on lab-type. For example, consider that a chemical might have many more fume hoods. This is from a report “Green Labs – Lab Energy 2019” from the university of Cambridge. The Life Science Department was located in York and the Chemistry Department in Manchester.
In other words, subtle nuances like internal geometry, different working principles, or material choices stack up.
But now, let's discuss how sustainability goes hand in hand with higher performance:
Innovations in Chromatography
If you can cut your run time in half while preserving resolution, you will save half of your resources.
A few years ago, Waters enabled exactly that.
Moving from HPLC to UPLC essentially meant using smaller column particles to enable higher flow rates and reduced band broadening.
This is a graphic adapted from Guo et al., essentially showing the development of smaller particles from the 1970s to today.
That means higher quality as well as less solvent (and potentially energy) use.
Technically, the challenge was higher backpressure, i.e., the pressure in the system necessary to push the eluent through the column.
It's much more complicated but Waters handled that through innovations in reinforced tubing, zero-dead-volume fittings, improved seals and valves, and short fluidic paths.
The difference is noticable, moving from a common 4.6 mm inner diameter column to 3.0 mm cuts solvent use by around 60%.
Jumping to 2.1 mm saves up to 80%, which is especially interesting for LC-MS, where lower flow rates can enhance ionization efficiency.
Notably, Waters now even offers 1.0 mm columns, which reduce mobile phase consumption by 77% compared to 2.1 mm columns.
Especially in high-throughput omics, these systems come with enhanced sensitivity and can save up to 50% of sample consumption.
Enhancing Column Design
Many protocols are inherited and rarely questioned. As a result, chromatography gradientscan easily remain longer than necessary - wasting time, solvent, and energy.
Waters offers a wide range of column dimensions and provides tools to calculate which setup is best and how to transition effectively.
Waters provides column calculators that allow you to check whether a change is feasible - for example, by testing whether the backpressure remains within acceptable limits.
I really love this example because shorter columns mean reduced run time - saving you valuable time.
Applying The Knowledge
Looking ahead, what can we expect?
Waters is about to innovate on an even more subtle scale:
One example that stood out to me was the use of flanged screws - a special type of screw with a washer-like rim under the head that eliminates the need for separate washers.
While these are not the exact screws or secondary electron multiplier (SEM) layouts of Waters MS, it should give you an idea on which level optimization is done.
This essentially results in fewer components, less weight, lower volume, and better vibration resistance.
Next up, they wanted to take a more holistic view, focusing on what “surrounds” the instrument.
They reduced waste by 11% for high-volume components, column boxes are made from 99% recycled content, and they have replaced the non-recyclable foam insert with a plastic clamshell made from 55% recycled materials.
It might seem trivial at first, but when you consider that in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa alone more than 180 000 columns are sold every year, it makes a difference.
And still, how can you find out which instruments feature innovative designs to be more sustainable?
By reading this series, asking manufacturers, and using the ACT Eco-Label!
Click to enlarge. Although other companies don't measure their environmental impact by default, Waters want's to be transparent and believes in their systems. This allows you to directly compare products across vendors in a quick and transparent way. I.e., there is no longer a need to ask representatives from each company individually. Read the ACT-Ecolabels here.
Waters has several MS, LC systems and more than 40 columns labeled.
To convince colleagues, it's key to share that even within the high-performance segment, large differences in sustainability exist.
Remember, saving 50% of gas, and over 65% of heat and energy while preserving resolution!
How We Feel Today
If you have a wish or a question, feel free to reply to education[at]re-advance.com. Otherwise, wish you a beautiful week! See you again soon : )
Edited by Patrick Penndorf Connection@ReAdvance.com Lutherstraße 159, 07743, Jena, Thuringia, Germany Data Protection & Impressum If you think we do a bad job: Unsubscribe
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