Biological Safety Cabinet and Ultra-clean Bench

Difference between biological safety cabinet and ultra-clean bench

       

Since most users do not know much about the performance, testing and inspection of biological safety cabinets and ultra-clean benches, it creates blind spots in understanding these instruments. But often sometimes these blind spots can cause fatal injuries.

It is not sufficient to measure the safety of either an ultra-clean bench or a biological safety cabinet on the basis of air velocity alone. Standardized testing and certification rules guarantee the credibility of the test and the safety performance of the safety cabinets.

 

The current international standard for ultra-clean bench is: 

         Air cleanliness level in accordance with ISO14644.1; Australian Standard AS 1807; IEST-RP-CC002.2 standard.

 

Biological safety cabinet standards:

American ANSI/NSF49 ( Class II biosafety cabinets); European standard EN12469:2000 ( Class I, Class II, Class III biosafety cabinets); Ultra-clean bench can only protect the samples, can not protect the operator, and its certification qualification includes the following steps:

 

(1) Measure the airflow rate of the ultra-clean bench with the rotating impeller anemometer and calorimetric anemometer. Safe airflow average: 0.4-0.5m / s, the maximum deviation of 20%.

(2) Measurement of ultra-clean bench filter integrity: use of natural wetting agent detector.

    (3) Measure the light intensity inside the ultra-clean bench, noise.

 

Biosafety cabinets are currently closely related to scientific research is the Class II biological safety cabinets and Class III biological safety cabinets. One of the Class II biological safety cabinets can be divided into several categories, but the laboratory is often used is 30% of the gas out, 70% of the gas cycle of the A/B3 type and 100% of the gas out of the B2 type. Biosafety cabinets can not only protect the samples but also protect the operator, which is why they are called “safety” cabinets. The testing procedure is as follows:

(1) Measurement of inflow gas flow (forward gas flow): using a calorimetric anemometer or a DIM airflow hood.

(2) Measurement of the downward air flow: There are two ways to do this, depending on the NSF49 and EN12469 standards. However, all of them use the calorimetric anemometer to measure the downward airflow rate.

(3) ULPA filter testing: wet agent photometer, wet agent generator, pressure gauge, PAO gauge.

(4) There are also intensity measurements of noise, light intensity, and vibration.

(5) Finally, the smoke generator is utilized for airflow image word testing.