What Your Laboratory Can Do to Meet EPA Regulations Regarding Disposal of Hazardous Wastes

1. Amer. Med. Technol. 44 (1982)4547

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Lynda Schneider 1981 Lancer Writing AwardRecipient

SUMYA RY With stringent government guidelines for disposal of toxic wastes, more and more clinical laboratories are being faced with ethical and financial problems. Often, the easiest and most economical solution can be found recycling their used solvents b r beneficial use.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS Distillation is defined by Webster as "a process of evaporation and recondensation used for separating liquids into various fractions according to their boiling points"(1). Since the earliest days of alchemy, the chemist has used this process as the simplest and most efficient way to purify and separate a variety of mixtures. Over the years many problems were experienced with a basic glass plate or packed column distillation apparatus. These problems included efficiency or separating capability, excessively large operating holdup, and many hours of technician time to operate the

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INTRODUCTION
In the federal RegisterNol. 45, No. 98/Monday, May 19,
1980/Rules and Regulations, the Environmental Protection

Agency outlined stringent guidelines goveming the disposal of hazardous wastes. Among the many solvents listed as toxic wastes were acetone. acetonitrile, methanol, toluene, and xylene. These are commonly used chemicals in a clinical laboratory. Xylene and alcohol are used in most histology and cytology laboratories for processing oftissues and slides, while acetonitrile and methanol are the two most widely used solvents for high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) studies performed in-chemistry labs. Some RIA labs use "tagged" or "hot" toluene in their liquid sdntillation counters. The EPA regulations, therefore, affect one or more departments in most clinical laboratories. In several states, hazardous waste disposal s i t e s have been closed down by govemment authorities, and many waste disposal a m panies have gone out of business. Many laboratories are being forced to store these used solvents because they have M acceptable solution available for their disposal. The EPA guidelines in the Federal Register made the interesting point that a hazardous waste that is being beneficially reused or recycled & not subject to EPA regulations or registration. With the purchase and disposa-! masts a! these solvents rising almost daily, recycling for reuse does seem to be the most economical ethical solution to the problem of hazardous waste disposal. However, it also raises a new and important question. How can these used and contaminated solvents be recycled for beneficial use with no loss in the quality of the recycled solvent? The answer is simple--spinning band distillation. However, most medical technologists have had little or no experience with this procedure or the theory behind it.

still. The ultimate solution to these and other related problems came with the invention, by the DuPont ComPanv, of the spinning band still. A spinrkg band still consistsof a pot flask and heating mantle, a receiver flask, a condenser, and a motor driven twisted band which rotates inside an adiabatic column (Figure 1). The column is surrounded by a silver evacuated jacket for maximum insulation. This is considered an adiabatic still since theoreticallythe system neither loses nor gains heat from outside influences;;. When the mixture in the pot flask is heated sufficiently to vaporize the lower temperature boiiers;-some of the higher temperature boilers in the mixture are also vaporized. In order to take off the low boilers withoutaiso taking off some of the high boilers, the operator mWorce the condensed liquid and the heated vapors-to have as much contact with each other as possible. When the low boiler vapors come in contact with the low boilers in the-condensed liquid, these low boilers are extracted due to thetheory4 l i e molecules attracting. At the same time,- the-high -boiler vapors are !@ifi~d t~ the; contact !ike ?no!s+u16S in the liquid date. As these high boilers change-from.vaporto-iiquid,=the heat energy that maintained them as a vapor isdischarged and absorbed by the liquid. This anergy -also-helps-gromote the vaporization of the low boilers trapped inthe liquid. In a spinning band still, the tightly fitting-bandmtates in such a manner that it continually pumps down-theietuming condensate. This continuously forms a thin layer of liquid on the walls of the column and creates thousands of surfaces for liquid-to-vapor contact inside the column. The greater the

Correspondence andlor reprints: Lynda Schneider, MT(AMT), 534 Fewnswalk, Annapolis. MD 21401. Mrs. Schneider was formedy chief medical technologist at Chesapeake General Hospital, Chesapeake, Virgida.

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Schneider
degree of liquid-tctvapor contact, the more efficient the still and the greater the separating capability. Theoretical plates are used to measure the separating efficiency of the still. The number of theoretical plates in a still can be determined by the Renske equation (2). The more plates there are in a column, the higher the efficiency of the still. For example-a 200 plate spinning band still can separate a compound with-only OS0C difference in boiling points. This degree of efficiency, however, is not required for the separations to be performed by a clinical laboratory. What requirements are ncessary for- a spinning band system to make recovewof used solvents feasible in a clinical lab? Most important on the list is efficiency. The quality of the end product cannot be sacrificed in order to save money. It must be able to-recover these solvents up to reagent grade purity or, for some laboratories, HPLC grade purity. The q u a n t i of the- used solvent that can be recovered and the rate at which it-can be distilled is also of great importance. In a busy clinicat lab where time is of great value, the amount of operatortime required is also of cona m . As with any intruments, safety features play an important role. At present, the only company manufacturing a spinning band distillation system that meets all of the above mentioned criteria is WR Instrument Corporation of Pasadena, Maryland. This company has manufactured spinning band stills for industry and research since 1966, but only recently recognized and developed a system to meet the requirements of a clinical laboratory. This instrument is the B/R Model 40T Clinical System with 30 theoretical plates. With this system, a laboratory A n recover up to 95% of used solvents at a rate of one to four liters per hour depending on the purity required. Operator time is minimal. It takes less than an hour per day to set up the system and shut it down. It is fully automatic and operates unattended, even overnight, once the parameters are set. It incorporates a safety shut down device which automatically shuts off all power to the unit should the pot go dry or for any other reason overheat.

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RESULTS
Comparison of HPLC grade acetonitrile and previously used redistilled acetonitrile was performed according to boiling range, refractive index, Karl Fischer titration for water, ultraviolet absorbance, fluorescene spectra, and chromatograms (Table I).This comparison proves "that solvents with sufficient purity for reuse in most HPLC analyses can be recovered using spinning band distillation" (3). The distillation rate must be slowed down somewhat t _achieve HPLC purity. A previously used solvent mixture from a local hospital' histology lab was redistilled at a rate of three to four liters per hour. The waste was collected f" the tissue proces sor, the slide staining procedure, and xylene that was used to clean paraffin from the tissue dishes. The largest fraction of the distillate was xylene, which was taken off at approximately 138C. The second largest fraction was ethanol which was taken off at approximately 80%. Comparison of the redistilled xylene and ethanol w i t h unused reagent grade xylene and ethanol showed that the redistilled products were even purer than those that had never been used (Fig) . Impurities, fats, contaminants, strains, and ures 2 and 3 paraplast remained in the pot for disposal. Cultures of this waste yielded negative results. From four liers of used solvent mixture, approximately three liters of xylene and 500 mL of ethanol were recovered and successfully used again. Toluene mixed with PPO and tagged with V25 can be redistilled. This will separate the toluene from the radioisotope and PPO, thus drastically reducing the amount radioactive waste the laboratory must store until it deca Further studies are presently being conducted in this area ascertain the reuse of this toluene.
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A u c w t i c Srfcty Shut-dwn

T8bb 1. Acetonitrile Specilicatims

Pot Th.r"tcr

4
HPLC Grade

Redistilled
82 1.3465 0.08% 99.9% 2%

3 Reccoraclc Plug-in for L I I ?over Source for Complete Automat

Shut-down

BOILING RANGE REFRACTIVE INDEX WATER (KARL FISCHER) GLC PURITY FLUORESCENCE: 300NM EX 289NM 315 330 340
IlOV-60 cyc.

81-82C. 1.3466(1SOC.) 0.07% 99.9% 2-3% 6-9 0-1 0-1

Magnetic S t f r r i m g arr

uv:

210 220
mn

0.09 0.01 n 01

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Hazardous Waste Disposal

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DISCUSSION Most laboratories will save enough in reagent and disposal costs to pay for the distillation system within six months to a year while meeting EPA requirements and conserving valuable petroleum products. The contribution to environment protection is an even greater incentive.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS '. Charles McBeth, Ph.D.. Clinical Chemist, Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland. Robert Foery, Ph.D., and John Mangravite, Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, West Chester State College, West Chester, Pennsylvania Roger ROWPresident, B/R Instrument Corporation, Pasadena, REFERENCES Figure 2. Comparison by G C of unused reagent grade xylene isomers with used redistilled xylene Isomers.

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Inc. Cedar Knolls, w, 1975. . 2. Fenske, M. R., Ind. Enq. Chem., 24 (1932) 482. 3. "Recovery of HPLC Acetonitrile by Spinning Band Distillation," t the Datusz, Bellew, Mangravite, and Foery paper presented a Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied i t y ,New Jersey, March, 1960. Spectroscopy, Atlantic C

1 . Webster's Encyclopedia of Dlctionades, Wehman Bros..

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Figure 3 . Comparison by GC of unwed 95% ethanol with rediallkd 95% athnol.

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