A consortium including the University of Plymouth has been awarded £3.6 million to advance technology which captures, recovers and recycles volatile anaesthetic gas waste for future reuse.
Anaesthetic gases released during medical procedures in hospitals and other healthcare settings are responsible for emitting around 4 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions (CO₂e) worldwide each year. This makes them a major contributor to the carbon footprint of healthcare and, ultimately, to global warming.
To address that, a group of organisations will work together to enhance pioneering technology developed by SageTech Medical, a Devon-based company revolutionising sustainable innovation in the healthcare sector.
SageTech's technology safely captures anaesthetic waste during procedures so it can be recovered and recycled. The recovered waste is then converted into reusable anaesthetics, helping create a circular economy, cut clinical costs and support NHS Net Zero goals by reducing emissions.
The new programme of work, funded through Innovate UK's Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme (SSMIP), will allow SageTech to expand manufacturing capacity and increase production of its patented recycling systems to meet growing demand in the UK and internationally.
It will also help the consortium accelerate the development of new, data-driven sustainable gas recovery and reuse technology, while enhancing existing systems by improving energy efficiency and minimising waste.
In addition to SageTech and the University of Plymouth, the consortium will bring together experts from the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) in Sustainable Innovation - which is hosted by the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with the University of Exeter - as well as the Manufacturing Technology Centre and the Centre for Process Innovation.
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