Solvent Reuse in Scientific Research Labs

Executive Summary:
Academic labs in a variety of STEM fields such as chemistry, biology, and engineering go through a staggering volume of resources to conduct research. One major single-use resource are solvents, or liquid chemicals that are used for a variety of protocols. Often times solvents are used for a single step in an experiment and then discarded without further use. However, many times these solvents were only minimally used or contaminated, and can be used for other less sensitive applications. By examining the extent of purity of solvents after different initial applications and testing its reusability other downstream applications, solvents were found to be reusable for a variety of uses. Thus, this work provides a systematic framework for evaluating solvent reusability depending on what it was used for first and what it is to be reused for.

Importance:
Solvents are heavily utilized in a variety of academic labs and are often discarded without a second thought. Because of this ubiquitous use but lack of re-use, being able to repurpose solvents would be of potential environmental and economical benefit. I personally use a lot of solvents during extractions and purifications of compounds, and I was both shocked at how much I used and how no one was going to use them for anything else.

Impact and Reach:
My overall goal was to evaluate solvent reusability through characterization of used solvent and efficiency in downstream applications. I would identify common solvents that are amenable for reuse, and which applications are good for reused solvent. Through this project, I would create a systematic framework for solvent reusability evaluation for labs to use with a wider variety of solvents. Some measurable objectives include the number of labs and departments involved in data collection, the identification of several solvents that are good for reuse and for which applications, the quantification of money and waste saved from reusing solvents for select solvents and applications, and the creation of database that labs at UCLA can contribute to and use for solvent reuse.

Collaborations:
Collaborators will be solicited from various departments at UCLA that have heavy solvent use. Expected departments will be Chemistry and Biochemistry, Biology, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biological Chemistry. A wide variety of labs will be involved to have larger data sets and more variety in applications. These labs will produce the solvent during normal experiment use which will be collected by me. All chemical analyses of solvents after use will be done at the UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center (MIC). The MIC houses several instruments for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy (LC-MS), and gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). After characterization of solvents, I will deliver them to labs that can use the solvent given its purity, where analysis of experimental success using reused solvent or new solvent will be done in house.

Your Role Well Defined:
I will be both leader and liaison between different labs. To get the project started, I will be reaching out to various labs as well as promoting the project in various department newsletters where I will be the point of contact. I will decide which experiments can initially be used to generate solvent to be evaluated, and I will collect all solvents. I will also run samples on relevant chromatography instruments and evaluate purity and perform simple distillation steps to increase purity if necessary. With the purity data in hand, I will confer with all labs through a database for which solvents can be used for other applications in their labs. The purity and data regarding purity will be uploaded to a database, where labs can request solvent for reuse based on their judgement for experiments. By taking the solvent, the labs will agree to run a parallel experiment with new solvent where the experiment success will be evaluated by the labs themselves and reported back to the database.
I will analyze the database after sufficient data generation. General trends will be elucidated for which initial uses for solvent are most amenable for which downstream applications. I will also provide this systematic framework to labs at UCLA afterwards to have facile access to facilities necessary for solvent evaluations, as well as any protocols and methods for the instrumentation specific to each solvent. I will also calculate the environmental and economic benefits of solvent reuse for the most successful workflows.

Optional Next steps:
Refining the collaborative database that labs can easily access would be in the future, including both UI and technical improvements. This would make it easy for labs to access the information and request solvent to use or to test. A integrated workflow to perform data analysis, including obtaining any relevant trends and conducting any economic analysis that will automatically update the
We will also need more partnerships with other departments to get a larger dataset. Otherwise, this project is self-contained with the available resources at UCLA and the facilities available to each lab, as labs will be doing their own research for solvent generation for my project.