Assessment of Chromatography to Promote Sustainability-Focused Purification Methods
Supervisor: Dr Alex Loch
School: Chemistry
Description:
This project aims to address the environmental impact of flash-chromatography purification methods, which are widely used but lack comprehensive sustainability-focused evaluations. Through a first-of-its-kind life cycle assessment (LCA), we will analyse resource usage, waste generation, and the potential for reusing and recycling materials, including purification cartridges and electronics. By identifying the most resource-intensive components, we will recommend improvements to reduce the environmental footprint and guide scientists in adopting greener purification practices without compromising purification quality.
The proposed Internship is supported (covering consumables and analytical fees) by a Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Sustainable Laboratories Grant, jointly awarded to JC (JWSE) and AL (Chem). The student will be primarily based in the School of Chemistry and will be responsible for validating chromatography practices with hands-on laboratory research, collecting and summarising analytical data, and proving experimental evidence to support the project’s overall sustainability focused assessment of chromatography. At present, the project can develop LCA models using licensed GaBi software. However, published literature lacks sufficient data to fully assess the reusability of silica-based media in flash chromatography. The student’s experimental studies will significantly strengthen the proposed LCA models. Rather than simply creating theoretical models for different scenarios, we aim to develop strong evidence to determine the limits of reusability without compromising performance. Even without LCA to quantify environmental impacts, establishing standards for reusing columns will be of great benefit, as there is no clear consensus within the chemistry community. Overall, we believe we can build a strong evidence base to effectively encourage scientists to adopt more sustainable purification practices