Is Environmental Screening Good for the Environment

Every day, all around the world there are thousands of gas chromatographs continuously analysing environmental samples, the majority of which will give a negative result. It is estimated that worldwide GC’s running environmental samples could be using as much as 1.4 gigawatt hours of energy and producing 840 tonnes of CO2 every single day. To put this into perspective an average 1.6 litre family car would need to drive around the circumference of the earth over 116 times to produce the same amount of CO2.

The amount of CO2 produced could be greatly reduced by using energy efficient fast GC technology for screening samples. The 300 Series Fast GC from Cambridge Scientific Instruments directly heats the column rather than using a conventional air blow oven. As only the column itself is being heated, considerably less power is required and the heating/cool down times can be much more rapid. A typical GC with a power consumption of 2200 VA running an application with a heating time of 20 minutes would be producing approximately 300g of CO2 per sample. A 300 Series Fast GC with a power consumption of only 850 VA is able to run an equivalent analysis, but thanks to its much faster heat up and has a run time of only 3 minutes. So not only is the 300 Series fast GC using less energy, but what power it does require is for a much shorter amount of time. All together this mean the 300 Series GC produces approximately 17g of CO2 per sample making it nearly 20 times more energy efficient. For further information on the 300 Series Fast GC please visit www.camsci.co.uk or if you would like to talk someone about your chromatography requirements please call 01353 669916. Cambridge Scientific Instruments.