A green idea turned into the right idea for the University of Colorado at Boulder department of chemistry and biochemistry.
The department, with help from the Facilities Management and Environmental Health and Safety departments plus $75,000 in funding from the Office of Campus Energy Conservation, replaced more than 70 old, polluting and inefficient water aspirators in the Cristol Chemistry and Biochemistry Building this year with new, innovative vacuum pumps. The retrofit project turned out to be a sound investment, saving CU-Boulder $40,000 and 10 million gallons of water per year.
Besides saving money, researchers found the new pumps to be quiet, low maintenance, corrosion-free, energy efficient, long lasting and free of hazardous waste.
"The new pumps are a night-and-day improvement over the old water aspirators and they are environmentally sound as well," said organic chemistry Professor Andrew Phillips.
Organic chemistry laboratories used water aspirators to run solvent "rotovap" distillations for research purposes. Aspirators are connected to water faucets which, when turned fully open, create negative pressure to draw a weak vacuum. This meant running water at full force into the sink and down the drain, wasting millions of gallons per year.
Besides being wasteful, water aspirators were a source of water and air pollution on campus. Solvent vapors condensed into the sewer system causing ongoing pollution problems. Solvents also would evaporate, resulting in chronic odors throughout the Cristol chemistry building.
"This is a multi-win scenario for the CU-Boulder community," said Michael Morrison, Environmental Health and Safety compliance manager. "Regulators, environmentalists, administrators, researchers and students can all be proud of this project."
For more information contact Morrison at (303) 492-4002.