Substitution of a laboratory practice with a focus on ‘chemistry green’ as a tool for the reduction of hazardous waste

Abstract

Chemistry labs allow technical education in a lot of professions. However, in the environmental area, they should have a cleaner approach, where the students can handle the concepts, but in a harmless form. Changing laboratory practices to practices with a green chemistry approach, allows the acquisition of knowledge, but with the improvement of being environmentally responsible. A basic assessment of a number of laboratory practices from the Pollutants Measurement course regarding energy use and waste generation was performed. Based on this assessment, a practice was substituted, moving from one with a green assessment of 3 to one with a green assessment of 8, achieving the incorporation of the same concepts in both cases. With the replacement of the back-titration practice, there is no significant difference in the acquisition of knowledge. But in waste generation the improvement was notorious; from 3.3 mole of highly dangerous waste to 0.2 mole of incipient hazardous waste. It is concluded that green chemistry allows to have an education with minimal waste generation.