Keeping pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other lab specimens cold is essential. According to some, if a shipment of temperature-sensitive products experiences variant temperatures during transit, they may be useless or harmful to patients.

Air-jacketed incubators rely on thermal insulation to maintain their set temperatures, but this is limited by the fact that repeated short-duration door openings can drop the sample compartment temperature. A cooled incubator uses phase change material to recover from these temperature variations quickly.

Temperature Control

Many test and experimentation protocols require specific environmental conditions to be maintained. If temperatures fall too low, they may inhibit cell growth or cause sensitive proteins to denature; if they rise too high, they could result in overheating.

The best lab incubators provide precise temperature control and come in various sizes to fit any space. Some models feature natural convection or forced air to distribute heat evenly and minimize the risk of moisture condensation inside the sample compartment. Some incubators also offer a digital display for easy monitoring and programmable settings.

Lab personnel must be careful when opening and closing the incubator door for the most accurate results. Frequent door openings can cause temperature fluctuations and reduce the unit’s energy efficiency. Using a chilled incubator minimizes the impact of frequent door openings, helping to maintain stable temperatures. This translates to more consistent and accurate results and lower energy usage.

Humidity Control

In many experiments and tests, precise temperature control is critical to a successful outcome. Whether for germinating plants, testing pharmaceuticals, or keeping samples alive until they can be retrieved and analyzed, accuracy and consistency are critical to preventing jeopardizing models and results.

A cooled incubator provides an environment that ensures accurate temperature control, allowing lab staff to concentrate on the task. This is especially helpful for microbial cultures where the growth process requires distinct temperature protocols at specific times and conditions that replicate a species’ natural habitat.

In addition, a cooled incubator’s phase change material is specially designed to undergo a controlled phase change at required incubation temperatures, providing faster and more gentle temperature adjustments than appliances with traditional refrigerants. This eliminates the need for a nucleation source, which reduces energy consumption and avoids supercooling and superheating effects. This also allows quicker recovery of the incubation chamber to its ideal temperature following frequent door openings.

Vibration Protection

Incubators provide a safe and controlled environment for cell growth, microbial reproduction, insect breeding, and plant germination. They also maintain precise temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and oxygen levels for lab applications such as zoology, pharmaceutical research, food science, and microbiology.

Temperature excursions above and below the optimum level negatively impact cell health. Cell reproduction slows if it is too cold; sensitive proteins denature if it is too hot. A refrigerator incubator creates an ideal sample environment, eliminating these fluctuations.

In addition to maintaining optimal incubation temperatures, incubators can sanitize the interior chamber with germicidal UV light and high-heat decontamination cycles. This sterilization controls contamination and helps ensure the integrity of samples. Unlike compressor-based thermal management systems, incubators use thermoelectric Peltier technology to cool, which reduces energy consumption and eliminates the need for harmful chemical refrigerants. This allows incubators to run longer without frequent maintenance or downtime.

Data Logging

A key benefit of using a wireless data logger with your incubator is that it allows you to track and record the temperature conditions within an incubator. This is important in many labs, such as the pharmaceutical industry, where maintaining a highly controlled environment can reduce bacteria growth and limit the risk of product loss or contamination.

Incubators create ideal cell and tissue sample growth environments in labs that do microbiology, pharmacology, food science, or other specialized work. They use Peltier technology to generate energy without chemical refrigerants or harmful gases and feature digital displays and glass doors for constant monitoring.

Most helped an in vitro fertilization clinic with a customized incubator monitoring and alarm system that facilitated efficient record traceability and real-time access to multiple incubators’ temperature, sound, and humidity variables. These tests showed a high correlation between recorded values and those shown on the screen, with the ability to capture event records (alerts) for each variable.