Community News

The fields of chemistry and toxicology are converging, leading to new opportunities in green chemistry and stoking important conversations – read more about these conversations from our Higher Education Program Manager, Natalie O’Neil, and her co-fellow Andrea R. Hindman from the Advancing Green Chemistry Fellowship.

See page 5 of the Newsletter for the Society of  Toxicology (SOT) Postdoctoral Assembly to learn more and visit the Postdoctoral Members – Society of Toxicology page for more resources.

SoluSave is a company that is looking at recycling laboratory solvents with an in-situ, microscale device. They are a start-up based in Toronto, Ontario and they are currently working with an entrepreneurial incubator called the University of Toronto Hatchery. The SoluSave team consists of undergraduate engineering students at the University of Toronto and a recent chemistry graduate. 

This idea was formulated by SoluSave’s original co-founder’s Leanna and John in March of 2019. They both noticed that the issue of solvent waste was ever prevalent in undergraduate laboratories where liters of solvent waste were generated in every laboratory course. At the University of Toronto, there is a strong emphasis on the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry in the undergraduate laboratory courses, this is in part due to the department signing onto the Green Chemistry Commitment program in 2016. However, the department has had a long history of fostering a culture of Green Chemistry practice among students, so it’s not surprising they were inspired to reduce their solvent waste as undergraduates. However, as they moved into the graduate research laboratories, they noticed that the extent of solvent waste was still prominent in these settings.

SoluSave was fortunate to be awarded the 2019 University of Toronto Sustainability and Innovation Prize. The team behind the idea is from the University of Toronto. John Russell completed his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and will be attending the University of Pennsylvania to earn his Ph.D. in Chemistry. Leanna Smid recently completed her undergraduate degree specializing in biological chemistry. Leanna will be pursuing a Masters of Business and Science at Utrecht University. Joseph Kamangu joined the SoluSave team earlier this year and is pursuing a major in Civil Engineering. Diana Li is studying in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and is also minoring in Engineering Business and Environmental Engineering.

Contact: Twitter, LinkedIn.

Our Higher Education Program Manager Natalie O’Neil has just released her purpose video created for the Advancing Green Chemistry Science Communication Fellowship, in collaboration with the Science Communication Network, a non-profit dedicated to helping scientists interact with the media.

Learn more about Natalie and her path to Green Chemistry and to join our team in the video below! Read more about Natalie and see other Fellow videos on the Environmental Health News website under the section Cutting Edge of Science.

Our Communications Intern Juliana Vidal shares her perspectives and feelings about being a chemistry graduate student in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Times are uncertain and the approach used is different, but the goal remains the same, read more from Juliana in the Chemical Institute of Canada article.