Biosafety cabinets (BSCs) come in a range of shapes, sizes, and safety levels to cater for the differing needs of research laboratories across the biological and chemical sciences, as well as the applied engineering and bio-engineering fields. While there are different types of BSCs (Class I-III) that offer a particular level of safety as standard—with III providing the highest level of safety—each type of BSC can be customized in many ways to fit your needs as the user(s) of the cabinet.
All BSCs are customized differently, and all levels of customization do incur extra costs. Alongside deciding the level of customization you might want to add to your BSC from a research and comfort perspective, you also need to ensure that the newly customized BSC is going to fit within your budget constraints and is a cost-effective addition for your laboratory.
The ability to customize a BSC is what makes it such an effective piece of equipment for many laboratories—both academic and industrial—and is a way of ensuring that you not only get the required level of safety that your specific research needs (and any other research that will be performed in the cabinet) but you and your fellow researchers will also have some degree of comfort based around your preferred choice of working with the cabinet, i.e. whether you prefer to sit or stand at the cabinet.
Once you have been through the typical buying process, have done all your risk assessments, and decided which class of BSC you are going to need for the research being performed in the laboratory, you can then start to look at how you may customize the BSC beyond the standard manufactured product. These customizations and additions tend to be either ergonomic benefits, safety benefits, or additions that will help to keep the work area and research organized.
Ergonomic Customization
When it comes to BSC customization, customization from an ergonomic perspective offers the most choices that cater to the needs of any individuals that may be using the BSC, regardless of whether they sit or stand, as well as to cater to the laboratories that have few researchers and those where many researchers may be using the BSC (including at the same time).
If you’re looking for ergonomic benefits, then making sure that any users have a good posture and are comfortable is the first avenue that should be considered. There are a range of options that can be added to the BSC in this area, including a recessed front airfoil grill that allows users to rest their arms without obstructing airflow, movable elbow rests with silicone padding that can also be added for greater flexibility when handling various laboratory apparatuses, and a frameless viewing window that allows greater visibility and better sightlines into the work zone.
Regarding the height itself, any users need to ensure that they are working at a height that is comfortable for them, with 90° seat back angles and knee angles, as well as a wide viewing angle. Adjustable base stands are available to suit the different needs of the laboratory and the ergonomic conditions of different personnel and come in the form of fixed height (sitting and standing), telescopic, and automatically adjustable base stands. For BSCs that are going to be used as a vivarium, motorized stands are also available. Beyond having the right height of the BSC itself, an ergonomically designed chair with the optionally available footrest provides optimal back and leg support.
As well as ergonomic positioning, lighting is also an important area that can be customized to suit the needs of the BSC users. For example, cool white fluorescent lighting can be added if you want to avoid reflection and reduce glare from the stainless-steel work zone. However, if you’re going to be working in the BSC for long time periods and want a more illuminated work zone that won’t strain the eyes, then LED lighting is the better choice because it is easier on the eyes. Non-glare windows also allow for better visibility of the work surface area.
Safety Customization
While a lot of the safety features come from the intrinsic design of the cabinet, the filter system and motor/blower airflow properties of the BSC, there are different variations available that can change some of these dynamics to improve the safety of the cabinet and make its usability easier for anyone using the cabinet depending on their technological preferences.
One of the main ways to customize your BSC from a usability and safety perspective is through the control panel, which gives the operator the ability to start and stop the blower(s) and monitor the airflow and plenum pressure inside the cabinet. There are many control panels to choose from, ranging from panels that offer a simplistic display of activity and alerts to more complex panels that offer more information through a digital display. Control panels can also possess analog switches, knobbed dials, or digital touch panels.
The range of offerings enables the buyer to choose the right panel in terms of both the information required about the cabinet as well as the interface that is technologically suitable so that all users can work its functions easily. Beyond the control panel itself, airflow monitoring sensors can also be installed to measure the airflow inside the cabinet to ensure that it’s running optimally, and this can be fed back into the controls; this offers a more precise insight into the operational condition and safety of the cabinet compared to measuring the plenum pressure alone.
The final way of ensuring a higher degree of safety inside the cabinet is to swap out the conventional motors for newer DC-ECM motors. DC-ECM motors have a number of advantages over other motors, including extending the life of the filter (reducing the lifecycle costs associated with filter replacement), reducing the energy consumption of the BSC by up to 50%, providing higher airflow speeds within the work area, and withstanding greater pressure drops within the work area—leading to a safer working environment. While DC ECM motors cost more upfront, they have the lowest life cycle cost in terms of energy, filter load capacity and reliability.
Additions to Benefit Research
Beyond pure ergonomic and safety benefits, there are a range of other features that can be added to a BSC to improve the research environment, mostly from an organizational perspective that helps each researcher to better utilize the shared workspace and reduce the chance of cross-contamination, spillages, and cluttered working areas.
From an organizational perspective, there are a range of mounts that can be added to make researchers’ lives easier. For example, stainless steel turntables allow researchers to maximize the spatial efficiency of the cabinet's work surface while reducing turbulence caused by reaching around and across the work zone; a recessed work tray also provides users additional flexibility when working with bottles or pipettes, whereas a prop up work tray can make routine cleaning easier because the work tray can be propped up at a 45° angle to allow researchers to clean under it without removing it from the cabinet.
From a technology perspective, it’s also possible to install different monitoring equipment and associated mounts, computer arms, and computer monitors on the back wall of the workspace of the BSC, as well make changes to the work tray and front panel to accommodate a microscope. For pharmaceutical research, an IV bar and smooth interiors can be installed within the BSC for efficient and easy-to-clean pharmacy compounding workflows.
The connections for any electrical lines, gas inlets, or equipment cables can all be customized to fit the needs of the BSC based around the research being performed and the equipment that will be used within it. It should be noted that any of these additions should be done by the manufacturer, as the incorrect installation of these lines, cables and inlets can cause turbulence inside the work area, reducing the safety of the BSC. However, your manufacturer will know the best way to customize them within your BSC to get the least amount of turbulence possible and the best functional benefit.
Conclusion
There are a range of additions and levels of customization that can be made to a BSC, but you need to ensure that these additions not only fit your budget but are being added to help you perform your work more safely and more effectively. The process of customizing a BSC is holistic and the additions that you need for your BSC are going to be different from many other people’s needs. For example, the additions to the cabinet are going to be different if you’re performing pharmaceutical research compared to if you’re dealing with very hazardous pathogens. You should also ensure that by adding extra features to your BSC that you’re not negatively impacting the function of the BSC or the researchers’ ability to perform their work safely in the cabinet.
The purchasing of a BSC requires balance and so does the implementation of customizable features to the BSC. Nevertheless, there are many beneficial features that can be added to your BSC (and all are beneficial in their own right in the right situation) but you need to ensure that they are beneficial to your specific needs. Choosing the wrong set of add-ons has the potential to either be ineffective, and therefore a waste of money, or be a hinderance by getting in the way of the work area if they are not actually required.
So, knowing your ergonomic, safety and installation needs, as well as understanding how the researchers using the BSC will work (e.g., sitting or standing) is crucial to understanding which additions and levels of customization are going to be beneficial for you BSC, and should be done first before the purchasing process begins.