John Canal

2024 Beyond Benign Community Grant Award Winner.

Title: “Innovating Lab Equipment”

Lead Facilitator: John P. Canal

Project Description:

The project presents an opportunity to instill in students a mindset geared towards sustainable practices in chemistry, with a particular focus on green chemistry solutions. Embedded within our inorganic curriculum, this educational initiative encourages students to evaluate established experiments through the lens of green chemistry principles and propose enhancements. These enhancements, aimed at minimizing environmental impact, are then integrated into the experimental procedures.

Among the innovations pursued are solventless reactions and the substitution of hazardous solvents with eco-friendly alternatives. Additionally, we aim to introduce students and faculty members to the benefits of waterless condensers. By embracing such technologies, we not only advance sustainability goals but also cultivate a deeper understanding of the resource-intensive nature of conventional chemical syntheses.

Traditional reflux condensers, such as the Liebig variant, have long relied on significant water consumption, averaging 2.5 liters per minute. Beyond the wastefulness of water, there exists a broader energy perspective often overlooked. The water utilized in these condensers undergoes purification at municipal facilities before its use and subsequent treatment at wastewater facilities before returning to the environment. Each step in this process incurs a substantial energy cost. These funds will be used to collaborate with a glassblower to design custom waterless condensers and to assess its effectiveness.