RT 1000 helps the Planet 

Faced with the threat of climate change, professionals have discovered that their laboratories must adapt to take care of the environment around them 

 

How much do you think a laboratory pollutes? The answer is a lot, so much that it marks them as one of the spaces that most resources consume out of any industry. A single ultra-low temperature freezer, capable of reaching -86ºC, consumes more energy in a single day than the average household. 

For each liter of pure water that researchers use, more than four liters are needed to create it. According to My Green Lab, an institution that promotes sustainability in scientific research, the plastic residues that laboratories generate every year could cover an area 23x the size of Manhattan ankle deep. Because of this, there’s more and more efforts to make them more sustainable, both by organisms such as My Green Lab, and the equipment manufacturers. 

 

Waste management is a delicate

and costly process,

and optimizing it

would bring a lower economic expense

 

Faced with the threat of climate change, professionals have discovered that their laboratories must adapt to take care of the environment around them. This awareness is not only beneficial to the ecosystems, but also to the economy of research centers. Waste management is a delicate and costly process, and optimizing it would bring a lower economic expense. Furthermore, less waste also means that there’s less risk to the staff’s health  

Wooptix is fully committed to this transition, which is why our phase camera represents our values with sustainability. One of the fields in which we demonstrate this commitment is optical microscopy, where it is necessary to use a collection of chemical materials to observe the different samples that professionals work with. For example, one of the most common are those involved in Gram staining, which stains bacteria in purple or red and pink, allowing to study and classify them. 

In response, the SEBI RT1000 can make real-time microscopic observations without the need to apply any dye or other product. It only needs to use the light passing through the sample. This way we can reduce how many products need to be consumed to perform microscopy tasks. In addition, it has the added benefit of facilitating material cleaning and waste disposal, using less water and generating much less waste. 

A curious fact, but that has great impact, has to do with how researchers relate to the tools they use every day. In research centers there’s equipment with a tremendously high cost, so they can only afford one or two of them and the members of the different research groups must share them.  

 

Our camera has a compact

and

easy to use design,

intended to adapt to the needs

of the different teams

With lower-cost equipment, however, what happens is the opposite. Because they can buy multiple units, scientists are much less likely to share them between groups. In direct response, our camera has a compact and easy to use design, intended to adapt to the needs of the different teams and to encourage their members to share tools beyond the most expensive ones. 

Of course, responsibility is not only inside the laboratories. Also, the manufacturers have to meet these new challenges. For this very reason, our camera has discarded all non-essential materials. Thanks to a proprietary algorithm, the SEBI RT1000 only has the lenses and the detector, leaving its software to do the analysis work. This way we reduce the components and its manufacturing costs, as well as facilitating a proper treatment at the end of its useful life. 

However, the main challenge that manufacturers face is that of power consumption. As many lines of research require their tools to meet very specific and difficult to achieve conditions, this high consumption is the reality that accompanies achieving these goals. But the advancement of technology opens new doors with which we can overcome these obstacles, especially the path that digitalization has opened for us.  

Thanks to the digital approach we took in the camera’s design, we were able to find a solution to reduce the energy needed. Now, it only needs a USB connection to the work computer as a power source, allowing for reduced power consumption during use.  

SEBI RT1000 is the proof

of our commitment,

and the promise of what is to come 

 

There is no denying the heavy impact laboratories have on the environment. Their work is indispensable to society, but skyrocketing energy and water costs and high levels of waste risk tarnishing this hard effort. With each passing day it is harder to deny the pressure on our planet, and the need to make changes in the areas that consume the most. At Wooptix, we aim to be an example to follow among research equipment manufacturers, developing tools with a smaller environmental footprint that contribute to making laboratories more sustainable spaces. 

SEBI RT1000 is the proof of our commitment, and the promise of what is to come.  

Daniel Cuartero