Laboratory Water Refluxing: Can sustainability be improved?

The Maulide Group at the University of Vienna experienced how a devastating water leak in a nearby chemistry laboratory which prompted them to search for alternative, water-free, options to Liebig condensers for refluxing. The group teamed up with Green Labs Austria to see if they could provide and share a more sustainable solution to water cooled refluxing in the lab. 

What are the alternatives to a water condenser?

Professor Maulide explained: "Green Labs Austria was enthusiastic about their experience with lab tools from UK-based sustainability specialists - Asynt. As a direct alternative to a water condenser, we have found the CondenSyn air condenser extremely convenient to use and its 'plug-and-play' installation has rendered reaction set up very straightforward. We have also found the CondenSyn air condenser to be very efficient at condensing refluxing solvents - even volatile liquids such as methylene chloride. In addition, swapping out our messy oil baths for DrySyn MULTI oil-free heating plate, not only improved user safety, but has allowed us to run three reactions simultaneously at the desired temperature, requiring minimal space and only one magnetic hotplate stirrer. This also reduces our energy consumption within the lab. With no loss in agitation efficiency, we have found that the DrySyn warms up our reactions much more rapidly than a common oil bath, and the temperature regulation is excellent. This new heating device is more energy efficient and we no longer have to find a way to dispose of degraded or contaminated oil from our oil baths."

Dr Kaiser, Post Doc in the Maulide Group, concluded: "The fact that we're saving huge volumes of tap water and not having to dispose of large quantities of waste heating oil allows the Maulide Group to significantly reduce our impact on the environment. We also no longer need to worry about the hassle and potential risks of water use. The ability to set up our experiments to reflux without concern over water flow rates and extra tubing cluttering up the fume hood is great!"

The Maulide Group at the University of Vienna are a dynamic and enthusiastic international group of researchers passionate about (organic) chemistry. The Group are taking action on a daily basis to reduce the environmental impact of their labs and are now a member of the Green Labs Austria initiative. For further information please visit

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