[3dem] how to dispose of used liquid nitrogen?

Wed Aug 2 01:50:54 PDT 2023

Hi Tobias, 

Make icecream?😁 (joking) 

It is possible to filter the LN2 to avoid the contamination issues you were mentioning. Just line a normal funnel with some paper tissue (preferably lint free) and pour the LN2 through there. This should render it clean enough again to store samples or use in other instruments. 

I also second the option of decanting into other vessels for passive evaporation, if you need the dewar back dry. But why don't you just leave it in there until the next user? As far as I am aware we leave whatever LN2 is left in our Stellaris dewar and simply top up for the next session. Only if there is a really long time between users, i.e. when it is too much hassle to keep it topped up, we empty and dry the dewar in a ventilated area. 

Hope this helps, 

Cornelia Cazey 

Cornelia Cazey (She/Her) 
Cryo-EM Facility 
Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB) 
c/o DESY, Building 15 
Notkestr. 85 
22607 Hamburg 
Germany 

phone: +49-(0)40-8998-87706 
email:cornelia.cazey at cssb-hamburg.de 

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Today's Topics: 

1. how to dispose of used liquid nitrogen? (Tobias Furstenhaupt) 
2. Re: how to dispose of used liquid nitrogen? (Guillaume Gaullier) 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Message: 1 
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2023 09:07:52 +0200 (CEST) 
From: Tobias Furstenhaupt <furstenh at mpi-cbg.de> 
To: 3dem <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu> 
Subject: [3dem] how to dispose of used liquid nitrogen? 
Message-ID: 
<1593585770.304626499.1690873672619.JavaMail.zimbra at mpi-cbg.de> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 

Dear colleagues, 
we own a Cryo lightmicroscope (Stellaris 8 Cryo-CLEM from Leica) that uses a 25 liter dewar for liquid nitrogen. Sometimes the session ends early and eventually we have a half-full dewar and we cannot re-use the liquid nitrogen anywhere else - either everything else is full or at some instruments we do not re-use nitrogen because of possible contaminations. 

We think of blowing it out with nitrogen gas at a very well ventilated area. But this would require room alterations. 
Therefore my question to you: How do you dispose of 10-20 liters of liquid nitrogen (that cannot be used anywhere else)? Or are we unique in our problem? 

cheers 
Tobias 

----------------------------------- 
Tobias F?rstenhaupt, PhD 
head of Electron Microscopy 
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) 
Pfotenhauerstrasse 108 
01307 Dresden, Germany 

mail: furstenh at mpi-cbg.de 
phone: (+49) (0)351 210-2690 
cell: (+49) (0)176 / 44498706 (NEW!) 

------------------------------ 

Message: 2 
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2023 07:50:02 +0000 
From: Guillaume Gaullier <guillaume.gaullier at kemi.uu.se> 
To: Tobias Furstenhaupt <furstenh at mpi-cbg.de>, 3dem 
<3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu> 
Subject: Re: [3dem] how to dispose of used liquid nitrogen? 
Message-ID: <8838d8a7353e44c09a218fc9357b1015 at kemi.uu.se> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" 

Hello, 

Why not donate this liquid nitrogen? If there are at your institution biochemists storing purified proteins and/or cell biologists cryo-preserving cell lines, it's likely that these people would use free liquid nitrogen if they knew where to find it. So try emailing your institution-wide list and see whether that solves your problem. 

If you need your tank empty and dry as soon as possible for the next clean refill, one option would be to transfer its leftover nitrogen to smaller dewars that you would then advertise as free LN2 up for grabs. Of course, store these in a well ventilated room, so if nobody wants this nitrogen it can safely evaporate passively (less work for you compared to having to actively get rid of it). 

It seems wasteful to evaporate it without at least giving other people a chance to use it. 

I hope this helps, 

Guillaume 

________________________________ 
From: 3dem <3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Tobias Furstenhaupt <furstenh at mpi-cbg.de> 
Sent: Tuesday, August 1, 2023 9:07:52 AM 
To: 3dem 
Subject: [3dem] how to dispose of used liquid nitrogen? 

Dear colleagues, 
we own a Cryo lightmicroscope (Stellaris 8 Cryo-CLEM from Leica) that uses a 25 liter dewar for liquid nitrogen. Sometimes the session ends early and eventually we have a half-full dewar and we cannot re-use the liquid nitrogen anywhere else - either everything else is full or at some instruments we do not re-use nitrogen because of possible contaminations. 

We think of blowing it out with nitrogen gas at a very well ventilated area. But this would require room alterations. 
Therefore my question to you: How do you dispose of 10-20 liters of liquid nitrogen (that cannot be used anywhere else)? Or are we unique in our problem? 

cheers 
Tobias 

----------------------------------- 
Tobias F?rstenhaupt, PhD 
head of Electron Microscopy 
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) 
Pfotenhauerstrasse 108 
01307 Dresden, Germany 

mail: furstenh at mpi-cbg.de 
phone: (+49) (0)351 210-2690 
cell: (+49) (0)176 / 44498706 (NEW!) 
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