Sustainable material innovation company, Kelpi (Bristol, UK), is using Asynt’s DrySyn oil-free heating blocks and CondenSyn waterless air condensers in their fight against marine plastic pollution and single-use plastics manufactured from fossil fuels.

Dr Stefanie Federle, Chief Scientific Officer, explained that “Kelpi is here to end the madness of using fossil fuels to create largely unrecycled, single-use packaging that takes hundreds of years to degrade, poisoning our oceans and polluting our landscape. We’re here to pioneer a new generation of solutions that leaves the oil where it belongs – in the ground - and offer compostable, marine-safe alternatives manufactured from seaweed.”

Whilst the Kelpi team have been listed as finalists in the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize powered by Lonely Whale, they aren’t resting on their laurels whilst waiting to find out who’s won the award; the company have recently achieved £3m seed funding and are now well on the road to revolutionising packaging for food and cosmetic sectors. 

Stefanie confirmed that most of their chemists had worked with DrySyn before, during their PhD or undergraduate studies at the University of Bath or University of Bristol, so when it came to kitting out the Kelpi lab, the choice was obvious.  She commented that “..we already knew that they are great products and, in addition to the sustainability advantages, we especially like them for their ease of use.  We’ve been using DrySyn since Kelpi started!”.

Typically working with volumes up to 100 mL before scaling up, the Kelpi scientists use the DrySyn MULTI platform when mixing reagents, conducting extractions, and carrying out chemical synthesis at a range of temperatures from ambient up to 150 °C.  For those reactions that require heating, the use a reflux set up with the DrySyn and CondenSyn air condensers.  

It is at the core of Kelpi’s ethos to work sustainably, but as a business and an employer, it is essential to use environmentally friendly laboratory tools that are both effective and user-friendly.  The DrySyn and CondenSyn meet the brief on every level and are being used by these innovative scientists to help bring about the end of fossil fuel-based single-use plastics.

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About Asynt

Asynt is a leading supplier of chemistry equipment for scientists in industry and academia. With a sales team of trained chemists, Asynt draw upon their in-depth application knowledge to provide a high-level of customer support for its oil-free DrySyn Heating Blocks, CondenSyn waterless condensers, turn-key & bespoke solutions for Controlled Lab Reactors, Flow Chemistry apparatus, Photochemistry systems, Synthesis Tools, Evaporators, Temperature Control Systems, Vacuum Pumps and Lab Safety Equipment plus more.

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