When it comes to environmental emissions there are well known offenders such as travel pollution and fossil fuel use, but a relatively unknown and significant source of emissions can be found in the modern anaesthesia gases used in hospitals.
Global anaesthetic emissions contribute 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents every year. The NHS’ anaesthetic emissions are equal to the emissions from the commute for all 1.3 million NHS staff.
Co-founded by anaesthetist, Sebastian Brown and entrepreneur, Mark Rushworth, SageTech Medical Equipment has developed a way to capture, extract, purify and resupply waste anesthetic agents used during surgery.
SageTech initially accessed the Fab Lab to learn 3D CAD, having identified this as an area crucial to the development of their technology. They accessed the SEED Project, an EU funded programme that enables the Fab Lab to provide bespoke learning to businesses based in Devon. From that, SageTech then accessed another EU funded programme; Impact Lab - Environmental futures & Big Data at PCA. This enabled them to receive technical support and 3D printing facilities. After around a year and many printed parts later, SageTech have moved onto the pilot stage and are testing their equipment an process in Devon Hospitals.