As soon as you get your chemical fume hood, you should acquaint yourself with some of these helpful tips. This will help to keep you and your work family safe. It will also help to keep everything working properly.
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The Importance of Selecting the Right Laboratory Furniture for Work Environment and Job Function
Biotechnology and bio-medical professionals that work in environments must have specialized furniture in their laboratories. Sometimes this furniture needs to be customized and built specifically to accommodate such professionals within their work environments. ESD and cleanroom room environments. Those who are responsible for handling hazardous material, chemicals and other substances, need to handle them in a certain manner. As such, laboratory furniture often requires that it is developed to be as accommodating for the work environment as possible. This includes lab benches, lab carts and lab furniture in general. Below are some uses for lab benches and laboratory furniture in the work-place and why it’s vital to select the right furniture based on your specific work environment and job assignment.
Laminar Air Flow Hood
Laminar Air Flow Hoods have a HEPA (High efficiency particulate air) filter; are made from Formica or stainless steel and are used to prepare IV solutions which require a sterile and germ-free environment. These devices will separate the air that flows through the hood in layers. The air is cleansed of bacteria and microorganisms. Laminar flow hoods are also used in medical facilities to protect patients with compromised or weak immune systems.
The Value in Functionality
Discovery Needs a Support System
Working in environments where the next great find may lie just around the corner is a fascinating prospect, for many a thrill-seeker. Laboratories are the birth place to amazing discoveries, where thorough study and achieved excitement go hand in hand. Every discovery requires the proper support system, as functionality and organization breeds the best setting for scientific testing and results to thrive. What is going on behind the scenes of the newest break-through in science could affect the reliability of the results. Behind every brilliant scientist is a surplus of tools and a healthy dose of ingenuity.
What Are Biological Safety Cabinets?
A biological safety cabinet may also be called a laminar flow hood or flow cabinet, a flow hood, or laminar air flow hood. These enclosures are specifically designed to create a clean air laboratory environment by removing air particulates through a filtration system.
Chemical Fume Hoods: 9 Quick Safety Tips
Useful Lab Equipment
One of the most useful items of lab equipment, a chemical fume hood helps protect against hazardous fumes, vapors and particles. From high school classes to large corporate research facilities, this expensive equipment offers great utility.
The Benefits of Laminar Air Flow Hoods
Clean rooms use chemical fume hoods and biological safety cabinets to maintain safety standards for laboratory environments. These systems are often part of the overall HVAC system located within the clean room environment. Although known to be very effective, fume hoods and safety cabinets can be costly for installation and maintenance. A ductless laminar air flow hood provides an economical alternative to the hoods and cabinets designed with costly exhaust systems.
Proper Uses for Chemical Fume Hoods
Architects engineers and chefs are well aware of exhaust hoods required for stoves in residential kitchens as well as exhaust and sprinkler hoods required for commercial kitchens. These hoods have the ability to exhaust suck in unwanted smoke from cooking appliances and exhaust it to the outside air.
5 Questions You Should Always Ask When Shopping for a Lab Bench
As a laboratory professional, your mind is usually preoccupied with calculations, formulations and speculation, but when it comes to buying laboratory equipment, it’s perfectly okay for you to admit to entering uncharted waters. But since your daily operations depend upon acquiring the work station that suits your unique needs and tasks, it’s incumbent upon you to ask the right questions while shopping so the outcome is as successful as your most daunting scientific challenge.
What do you do?
The devil is in the details, so coming up with a succinct answer to what first appears to be a simple question requires specificity. List all of the tasks that you perform each day to get started, and don’t forget the tasks undertaken by lab associates who may use your workstation from time to time. Now, match those tasks with features currently installed on your existing lab bench and add features you wish you had to make your job easier and more efficient. Examples of considerations are: storage requirements, ergonomics, lab bench size and height, and importantly, proper work surface materials, because solids and liquids you may handle may call specifically for epoxy resin or stainless steel if they’re to hold up over the long haul.
Does size matter?
You’re in luck. Today’s work station can leave as large or as small a footprint as you need to accomplish your most daunting tasks because you live in a modular age and just about every set-up under the sun can be configured to meet space parameters. A schematic of your lab’s layout gets the process in motion. If you’re not skilled at ascertaining spacing parameters, ask someone who is adroit at measuring area precisely so you wind up with exact measurements indicating left-to-right width and front-to-back depth. Explain to whomever plots the area how much work surface is required to host vertical accessory systems and equipment and if any of that equipment is unusually heavy, make mention of that so you don’t wind up with weight lode construction issues.
Which bench supports your typical workflow?
Does your workflow resemble a Detroit assembly line where tasks are moved along in linear fashion or does your system require a back-to-back, signature T, U, X or Y layout plan to meet your needs? Given many choices and the popularity of modular design, you no longer have to settle for “one-size-fits-all” lab furniture that doesn’t perfectly suit your needs. Add ergonomic efficiency to your list of workflow requirements so lab techs don’t end their days suffering from the stress and strain of working at a station that is too high or too low. Experts agree that a 30.5-inch work bench height accommodates between 99.5-percent and 99.9-percent of men and women. If your unique tasks require surface height adjustments, you may wish to place a crank- or motor-driven adjustable height system atop your list of features you can’t do without.
What are your lighting and wiring needs?
Perhaps your lab furniture setup requires a specific style, height or type of lighting to accomplish tasks. It makes no sense to install banks of overhead lights that drive a power bill through the roof when individually lit stations make more sense. Further, today’s lighting market offers products that are designed to suit benches requiring unique illumination requirements. For example, your lab may need to compensate for too much or too little natural light–or you might need fixtures that are fitted with glare and light-reduction filters. On a complementary topic, critical decisions must be made about power outlets, cable and cord management, ground fault circuit interrupters, hard wired data ports plus interfacing links between work stations so monitors or laptops are an integral part of the overall lab bench design configuration.
How important is storage?
Your mother wanted you to put things back when you were finished with them and you have probably come to appreciate that lesson—particularly if you have been forced in the past to deal with lab furniture that was counter-intuitive to tasks you performed regularly. What saved you? Storage. But every laboratory’s storage needs are unique, which is why a thorough inventory of items you keep on hand is important–so you don’t choose drawers, cabinets and shelves that are incompatible with the shapes, sizes, weights and number of items and supplies that require quick retrieval. Why is this so important? Imagine discovering, after the fact, that implements or tools you use for everyday tasks are too long to fit into standard-size drawers you ordered and that you’re stuck with that bad decision. Proper storage is so important to efficient laboratory operations, you may wonder how you survived without it once your lab is revamped!
Why Must You Install A Flow Hood In Your Workshop?
Installation of a flow hood in your workshop is a safety measure that must be taken by all business owners. You may work in a small workshop that attaches to your home, or you may manage a large facility. Every building that sees industrial work every day must have laminar flow hoods in every room. The hoods you install will help you remove dirty air from the space, and the hoods help protect the lungs of you and your employees. Installation protocols are different for every building, but a simple plan will help you complete an installation that makes sense for your business.
#1: Where Do The Hoods Go?
Flow hoods must be installed directly over workstations in your building. Your home workshop may feature a flow bench that allows you to remove dirty air from the room as you work, and the hood is designed as part of the bench. A larger workshop may have hoods over every table, and a massive factory may have several hoods hanging from the ceiling. You must decide how to install your hoods based on the size of your building.
#2: How Do The Hoods Work?
The hoods use fans that suck air out of the room into an attached hose or pipe. The hose or pipe may go to a duct that leads outside, or the air may be sent to an incinerator that burns off any fumes that are flammable. You must attach your hoods to pipes that take the air away from your workers, and there may be a building code in your area that addresses such installations. Ensure that you have installed each hose or pipe correctly once the hoods are installed.
#3: Power Sources
The power source for your hood must be the wiring in your building. You tap into the electrical outlets for each room, and you may place the control panel where the outlet once stood. Your hoods will turn on and off using a simple switch, but you are not plugging in a socket. The hoods work best when they are hard-wired into your building’s electrical circuitry.
The power switch comes with a knob that allows you to control the speed of the fan. Every fan must be set to accommodate the amount of gas in the room, and your employees may turn up the fan at any time. Combining the hood with a gas sensor will help your employees understand what setting to use, and your building will be much safer as a result.
#4: How Long Do The Hoods Last?
A laminar flow hood will last for years on end when it is cleaned properly. You must hire a local service to clean your hoods once or twice a year. A complete cleaning and inspection will reveal any problems with the hood, and the technician can repair those problems during the visit. Dirty hoods will allow debris to get back into each room, and flammable gases or debris may ignite inside the hoods. You may keep your hoods for decades, but the hoods must be perfectly clean all the time.
A hood or flow bench helps everyone in a workshop remain safe during production. Industrial materials and tools create gases and debris that must be pulled out of the room, and your hoods will keep the air clean inside the space. Your employees are counting on the hoods to keep the air clean, and you must keep the hoods in good condition for the safety of your staff. A proper workshop or factory is not truly safe until every workstation is covered by a hood fan.