89 North™ is dedicated to reducing the amount of mercury waste generated by labs performing fluorescent imaging. Mercury is a highly toxic element and its negative effects are well established1 and dramatic. Even small amounts of mercury in the environment, well below levels currently considered contaminated, can be concentrated up the food chain by a process known as biomagnification2 resulting in toxic levels of mercury for fish-eating wildlife and humans. Waterbirds whose diet are solely made up of fish are especially susceptible to mercury contamination.3
Mercury arc lamps are currently the most common type of illumination source used in fluorescence microscopy. Unfortunately, a typical arc lamp contains as much as 150 mg of mercury and will have a useful lifetime of only ~200 hours. This means that a typical lab may consume 3-4 lamps each year. Proper disposal of these lamps is time consuming and expensive.
Fortunately, alternative illumination systems are available that significantly reduce the amount of laboratory mercury waste created. 89 North’s high powered light sources, the PhotoFluor II and the Heliophor, both allow researchers to dramatically cut their mercury waste with compromising the quality of their experiments (and in fact, can substantially improve the quality of their research).
The PhotoFluor II utilizes a high power metal halide lamp with a useful lifetime nearly 10 times longer than that of a mercury arc lamp. In addition, a metal halide lamp requires 25% less mercury than a mercury arc lamp of comparable power. The net result is that a lab can reduce its mercury waste generation by up to 40 times by replacing their current mercury arc lamp with a metal halide lamp, such as the PhotoFluor II.
The Heliophor is a pumped-phosphor light engine that offers even greater potential to reduce waste. The Heliophor contains no mercury so therefore generates no mercury waste. With a useful life time well over 10,000 hours, the Heliophor can obviate the need for over 50 traditional arc lamps over its lifetime. This is the equivalent to nearly 7.5 grams of mercury waste. For reference, mercury levels less than 1 ng/L in basin and wetland tributaries have been associated with extensive fish mercury levels. 7.5 grams is enough to contaminate over 7.5 billion gallons of water to these levels.4
1 http://www.usgs.gov/themes/factsheet/146-00/
2 http://toxics.usgs.gov
3 http://www.werc.usgs.gov/Project.aspx?ProjectID=70
4 Environ. Sci. Technol., 2011, 45 (6), pp 2048–2055
89 North was selected to receive the 2011 Vermont Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence for the Heliophor.
