Balancing Safety and Efficiency: Reducing energy consumption of biological safety cabinets to meet sustainability goals

Dan Ghidoni, PE, CIH, The Baker Company / NESA

Becoming more energy-efficient is a common goal for laboratories, so understanding how their equipment impacts energy consumption is important. Laboratories use about five times more energy than office space. This is in part because they utilize many containment and exhaust devices, as well as a great deal of other heat-generating equipment. Typical tissue culture laboratories are heat load-driven, which means the air change requirements of a facility's ventilation system are determined based on the level needed to remove this heat and keep the space comfortable and safe. Because laboratories have fairly demanding ventilation requirements, including 'once-through' air, this also contributes to high energy consumption.

As the primary containment device in the laboratory, biological safety cabinets (BSCs) are critical for the protection of personnel from exposure to airborne biohazards and other potentially harmful contaminants within the cabinet. BSCs also provide product protection from contaminants outside the cabinet environment.

Over the past few years, significant improvements have been made in the energy efficiency of BSCs; however, operating efficiency should not be the only factor considered when selecting the right BSC, and it is important never to sacrifice safety for energy savings.

This presentation will review the various energy requirements of BSCs, including the electrical energy required to produce the mechanical energy needed for safety, and the conditioned air energy required to remove heat produced. The discussion will include how best to balance energy efficiency with performance when selecting a BSC. Design recommendations will be presented, and techniques for reducing energy consumption will be examined.

Finally, the presentation will showcase real-world results from a research facility's risk assessment, investigation of building control integration, and return on investment study, which determined that the facility could save almost $3,000 in energy costs per cabinet per year by updating their BSCs.

Biography:

Dan has 30 years of experience in the contamination control industry. Currently, he is an Applications Engineer with Northeast Scientific Associates, The Baker Company's New England sales representative, where he is responsible for providing equipment solutions to control laboratory contaminants. Formerly, Dan was the engineering team leader for Baker's chemical fume hood and biological safety cabinet product lines. His extensive airflow knowledge assures the proper integration of hoods with building HVAC systems. Dan is a member of ASHRAE and former chair of the laboratory committee. In addition, he is a member of the ASHRAE 110 committee responsible for updating the fume hood test standard. He teaches regularly at The Eagleson Institute and is a member of ABSA, AALAS, and AIHA. He holds a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Maine.

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