Reducing DCM Use
Dichloromethane (DCM) is a popular solvent choice for chromatography. It has high eluting power for polar compounds, is volatile, facilitating easy removal, and currently readily available.
However, DCM also has acute and chronic toxicity in humans including respiratory, cardiovascular and CNS toxicity, as well as suspected carcinogenicity and genotoxicity. In fact, the US Environmental Protection Agency has gone one step further and reclassified DCM as a known carcingoen.1
Furthermore, DCM is a persistent environmental contaminant (t1/2 = 18 months in water) and has been identified as an ozone depletory, amongst other environmental risk factors.1
Sygnature Discovery has therefore taken pre-emptive action to reduce our reliance on DCM and continue our company wide effort to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Over the last 5 years we have reduced our use of DCM by over 50%, which amounts to a staggering 19 tons of DCM. This was achieved whilst maintaining productivity and delivering on-spec products for our clients.
[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-05-08/pdf/2024-09606.pdf