IonField Systems has a big idea: to cut pharmaceutical lab waste with the help of its pioneering plasma cleaning technology. But to bring that idea to life, the organisation needs to help labs understand the tangible benefits of ending their use of single-use plastic and adopting its revolutionary approach. 

Pharma laboratories generate vast amounts of plastic and hazardous waste – from pipette tips to microplates. IonField Systems is on a mission to change that. Its pioneering and patented plasma cleaning technology enables labs to reuse consumables and cut waste. But to secure widespread roll-out of its cleaning tech, the organisation needed quantitative verification to demonstrate why labs should discontinue their use of single-use plastic and adopt its revolutionary approach. The team needed detailed analysis into the use cases for specific labware products and its cleaning device capabilities to answer this critical question:

In which scenarios – and across how many clean and reuse cycles – does plasma cleaning tech become more environmentally sustainable than single-use plastic alternatives?

Working in close collaboration with IonField Systems, the Zühlke team set about conducting an environmental evaluation and lifecycle assessment (LCA) based on ISO 14040 standards. The team analysed all lifecycle stages to calculate the carbon footprint of both the plastic consumables and the cleaning system – spanning production, packaging, transport, use, and end-of-life.

The Zühlke team also developed a comparison tool that enables IonField Systems to adapt the LCA results for different use case parameters, such as number of reuses, customer location, transport distances, energy mix, and more. With the help of this model, IonField Systems can customise results for any laboratory interested in comparing these practices.

Thanks to the collaboration with Zühlke, IonField Systems was able to demonstrate how its cleaning tech can reduce a lab's carbon footprint from plastic labware by 60-90% compared with single-use consumables. What's more, the comparison tool enables the organisation to create customer-specific scenarios that help prospective customers to better quantify the environmental improvement in Kg CO2 eq. Better still, our analysis identified emissions hotspots in the cleaning tech product itself. This gave IonField Systems a clear picture of how to enhance and continually optimise its pioneering cleaning devices to make them even more sustainable.

• IonField Systems can provide accurate modelling for prospective customers, demonstrating how its tech can help customers meet their corporate sustainability goals.

• Objective, third-party verification of the plasma cleaning product's sustainability credentials strengthens marketing and sales strategy.

• Our analysis reveals product innovation opportunities to continuously enhance the plasma cleaning device.