Author: Akshat Rathi

Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News. He has previously worked at Quartz, The Economist and The Conversation. His writing has appeared in Nature, The Guardian and The Hindu. He has a PhD in chemistry from Oxford University and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.

A Chemist’s carbon footprint reduction

Akshat Rathi5 Comments

As a synthetic chemist, it is a very embarrassing question if asked about our personal carbon footprint. Frankly, it is much greater than normal citizens. We use flammable and non-flammable solvents very regularly. Most of the chemical reagents we use are of 99.9% purity requiring large amounts of energy to manufacture and purify. These chemicals are shipped from all over the world and require extra care in transportation. We often use rare metals in reactions, these require a great amount of energy to isolate. Yes, we are guilty of a larger carbon footprint than normal citizens. But no one asks how can we reduce it?

This question bugged me for quite sometime. We can do all those things that normal citizens do but as chemists can we do something more? One of our major contributions come from our use of solvents. I thought, looking into solvent disposal might give a hint into some simple steps that may be taken to reduce emissions. So I had a chat with our department‘s Safety Officer. He started the conversation with a very blunt question, “Why do you ask?”. May be he thought, I am one of those extreme climate change activist. After I explained to him what I wanted to know about it and that I meant no harm he said, “I was taken aback because no one wants to what happens to it after it’s dumped.” So he realised some people care and he was happy to answer any question I had.

One of the companies Oxford regularly uses for it’s waste disposal is Grundon. While we are in the lab, we separate our solvent waste in Hydrocarbons (Petrol, Diethyl Ether, Ethyl Acetate), Chlorinated (Dichloromethane, Cholroform) and Acetone (Wash acetone with lots of water). Chlorinated wastes needs to be disposed by incineration to avoid formation of dioxins where as hydrocarbon can be used for energy recovery. But what he thought is that the HC waste is used to create the high temperature furnace for the incineration of chlorinated waste. What about acetone? He said, “Most of it is taken by cement industry. If they see it’s dark in colour they won’t touch it, but otherwise they use it.” But is recycling not possible for any kind of waste? “No, I think it’s too energy intensive to get clean solvent than to just burn it off.”

He digressed and gave some interesting statistics, Oxford University produces a lot of waste. The only chemistry department that has comparable volume of waste is Cambridge. “Sure, but that’s because we are the biggest chemistry department in the UK, right?” Yes he says, “I talk to most Russell group universities about what they do about waste management. It turns out some universities don’t produce more than two barrels a month! And here we fill couple a day.”

Anyways, ending the talk I said, “So the best we can do is make sure we separate the different types of solvents with care?”. “I guess, but I don’t think that will make a big difference unless everyone does it.” From all this, the conclusion I could come up with is that we can do the following to help cut emission in someway.

  • Minimise use of chlorinated solvents. (even though DCM is my favourite, low-boiling and polar)
  • Try not to mix chlorinated and non-chlorinated solvents. (I often rinse column tubes with DCM even if I have done a hydrocarbons only column. I guess using ether is a better option but it is much more expensive than ethyl acetate. Thus, although acetone (not wash acetone) is high-boiling it is the best option or use ethyl acetate?).
  • Turn the temperature of the oven lower?
  • Do smaller scale reaction when one can (reduces a lot of things, smaller columns, less solvent and lesser time for same results, most of the times).
  • Spend time thinking which experiment to do, make sure you have a strong justification (saves time, saves waste!)

These are conclusions based on my experience and the very little data that I have gathered. I am hoping to look into it a bit further and try and collect some hard statistics on this issue. If anyone has anything to add to this, I would be really happy to hear from you.

Farewell Speech

Akshat Rathi6 Comments
K. V. Auditorium full with the Class of 2008

When I finished my 12th standard, apart from the IITs the only place I applied to was UICT. I was even ready to slog another year if I couldn’t get in either. I made it here; it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I came with a small dream of completing my engineering and eventually moving into the corporate world. And now after four years, I stand here with an admission letter from the University of Oxford for a PhD in Organic Chemistry. UD, (as we call it) has changed my life, drastically.

As a kid, my mom used to say you dream a lot, that’s good. But not until I came to UD did I realize, I don’t dream enough. UD is the land of opportunities. Opportunities to increase your potential, to develop your perspective, to shape yourself, to hone your skills and opportunities to create more such opportunities. I’ve been transformed from a school boy eyeing big salaries over to a matured student ready to take up scientific research. And this transformation as difficult as it was, was possible only because of UD and its people.

I would like to mention a few of the important happenings in my life at UD. I am proud to be from the batch that started The Spirit. That year, my third year, I scored exceptionally lower than my average. But, I do not regret any moment spent on working for Spirit. The joy that it gave was tremendous. When the first issue arrived, I remember how we sat smelling the copies. It was the smell of hard work and success, we still do the same when the new issues come. Sometime in between we changed the printer, the smell changed but it was as sweet as ever. I have met so many new people through the Spirit. I’ve made friends for life whom I wouldn’t have even met otherwise. As with The Spirit, working on Bombay Technologist was a good experience too. Volume 56 and 57, 2 issues was a big responsibility but with the right people around me, we made that possible. It was a pleasure working with all the faculty members involved in this endeavour.

I cannot thank each of one of you enough, the faculty, my colleagues and the non-teaching staff. Every step where you pushed us ahead was as important as every barrier you created. Before coming to UD my dad had said, “What you will learn from gaining a professional degree is a perspective towards life”. And after 4 years of UD, I realize that he couldn’t have been any more precise in those few words.

Photos from the farewell day can be found here.