CO2 Incubator
What is the CO2 incubator?
Basic information
The CO2 incubator is an advanced instrument for the culture of tissues, cells, and bacteria. And it is also a necessary equipment to develop immunology, genetics, oncology and bioengineering. CO2 incubator is based on the generals cultures to be improved. The essential function is to add carbon dioxide so that the incubator can meet the environment need of cultivating microorganism. The concentration of carbon dioxide in CO2 incubator is controlled by carbon dioxide concentration sensor.
Operating principle
The CO2 sensor is used to detect the CO2 concentration in the incubator, and the detection results are transmitted to the pilot circuit and the solenoid valve. If the concentration of CO2 which is detected in the incubator is low, the solenoid valve will open and let the CO2 enter the incubator until the concentration reaches the set concentration. At this time, the solenoid valve is closed and the CO2 in the incubator is cut off to reach a stable state.
The CO2 sampler samples the air mixed with CO2 in the box to the sampling port on the external panel of the machine, so that the CO2 concentration tester can be used to detect whether the concentration of CO2 meets the requirements at any time.
Most CO2 incubators generate moisture through evaporation of humidifying discs, and the relative humidity level can reach about 95%, but the humidity recovery speed is very slow after opening the door. Because the larger the evaporation area of humidity is, the easier it is to reach the maximum relative saturation humidity and the shorter the humidity recovery time after opening and closing. Therefore, the incubator with large evaporation area is easier to maintain the maximum relative saturation humidity than the incubator with small evaporation area.
CO2 incubator application
Application of CO2 incubator : use artificial methods to create an artificial environment for the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, bacteria, and viruses in the incubator. Therefore, it has been widely used in environmental protection, life science, immunology, genetics, clinical medicine, agricultural science, pharmaceutical industry, food industry, toxicology, basic biology research, and early clinical medicine research.
Composition of a carbon dioxide incubator
— The liner is made of mirror-finished stainless steel or wire drawing plate argon arc welding production, and the four corners of the semicircle are easy to clean.
— Using microcomputer temperature controller, low-temperature fluctuation.
— Some CO2 incubators provide sterilization function by automatically sterilizing high-temperature hot air to circulating air through UV sterilization.
— There has an independent temperature limit alarm system, it will stop working automatically if the temperature exceeds the limit. It is a safety device to protect the experiment from accidents.
— There has a door temperature control function that can prevent the condensation of the glass door inside the incubator.
— The water-jacket type incubator is equipped with a microbial filter, so it can filter the air in the CO2 incubator and remove 99.7% of particles above 0.3μm.
— The incubator has a CO2 press reducing valve
— The moisture can be produced by evaporation of the Humidifying plate to maintain high humidity.
— The concentration can be measured by an Infrared Radiation(IR) or thermal conductivity sensor (TC).
— The incubator has the calibration function of the CO2 measurement system.Two ways of heating carbon dioxide incubators.
There are two heating system about CO2 incubators, one is water jacket heating, the other is air jacket heating. These two heating system is very effective, but there are still some differences during heating.
Water jacket heating
The water jacket heating is a separate hot water chamber surrounding the internal box to keep the temperature constant. The hot water circulates through the chamber by natural convection, and heat is radiated into the chamber to keep the temperature constant. The biggest advantage of the water jacket type is water because water is a good insulation material. If the electricity is cut off suddenly, the water jacket heating can keep the temperature in the CO2 incubator stably. According to statistics, the time to maintain the constant temperature is 4-5 times that of the air jacket type.
Therefore, the water jacket CO2 incubator is suitable for those experimental environments and is not too stable. For example, the limited power consumption and the need to maintain stable cultivation conditions for a long time.
Air jacket heating
The air jacket heating system is a direct heating CO2 incubator. It directly heats the air in the incubator. Therefore, this design can quickly restore temperature stability in the case of frequent temperature changes caused by the frequent opening and closing of the incubator door.
Compare with the water jacket heating, the air jacket heating is faster heating and faster temperature recovery than the water jacket heating. In addition, for users, the air jacket heating is simpler than the water jacket heating, because the water jacket CO2 incubator needs to add water to the tank, clean and emptied the water tank, and the operator also monitors the working condition frequently when the water tank is running.
Types of CO2 incubator
Tri gas incubator
Principle: The tri gas incubator is a new type of high-oxygen incubator. According to control the input of O2 or N2, the three gases of O2, N2, and CO2 can be controlled respectively. The tri gas incubator only includes N2, O2, and CO2. If the proportion of three gases adds up to 100%, the content of these three gases can be controlled accurately only by controlled the content of two of them. The tri gas incubator adopts the breeze circulation way to make the air circulation close to the natural air convection, so it can shorten the recovery time of temperature, humidity, O2 concentration, and CO2 concentration, and make sure the proportionality of O2 concentration and CO2 concentration. It also has a separate door temperature to make the constant temperature unacted on the environmental temperature changes.
Application: The tri gas incubator is widely used in cell and tissue culture and propagation and cultivation of some special microorganisms. It is also used in microbial culture, collection of mammalian cell secretions, carcinogenic or toxicological effects of various physical and chemical factors, research and production of antigens.
Direct heat CO2 incubator
Principle: The direct heat CO2 incubator, which is also known as the six-sided heated CO2 incubator, is base on the principle of gas jacket heating to heat the samples directly.
Application: The direct heat CO2 incubator is a biochemical experiment instrument for cell tissue and bacteria culture. It is commonly used in science, immunology, genetics, agricultural science, pharmaceutical industry, toxicology, etc
Large capacity CO2 incubator
The large capacity CO2 incubator is suitable for a large-scale sample test population, the advantage of a large capacity incubator is that samples can be analyzed in large batches at one time. It is large in size but flexible in function. Therefore, the large capacity CO2 incubator is It is widely used in large-scale experiments.
Mini CO2 incubator
The mini CO2 incubator is also called a portable CO2 incubator, and it is mainly used for field analysis, and carries it conveniently. If the laboratory space is limited, and want to improve the space efficiency, or want to culture the sample in a short distance transfer, a mini carbon dioxide incubator is the best choice.
CO2 incubator sensor: an important part of CO2 incubator
The CO2 incubator sensor is a key part of the CO2 incubator, it is used in detecting the concentration of CO2 when the incubator is working. At present, the Infrared carbon dioxide sensor is the most common because it is an intelligent general-purpose, and a small sensor. It uses the non-dispersible infrared (NDIR) principle to detect CO2 in the air, it has good selectivity and no oxygen dependence, and the durable years are very long.
The difference between CO2 incubator and ordinary incubator
The CO2 incubator is improved based on the ordinary incubator. It can create an environment for the better growth of cells and tissues through the control of the surrounding environmental conditions. The result of the condition control will form a stable condition. In addition, with the increased control of CO2, and the use of microcontrollers to control the incubator temperature, the success rate and efficiency of biological cells and tissues are improved. Therefore, the carbon dioxide incubator is the advanced version of ordinary culture, the price is higher than the ordinary constant temperature incubator.
CO2 incubator
Ordinary incubator
Precaution for using CO2 incubator
1. Please do not switch on the power before adding water into the CO2 incubator, otherwise the heating element will be damaged.
2. Replace the cylinder if the cylinder pressure is lower than 0.2MPa.
3. The CO2 incubator can be used as a high-precision constant temperature incubator. At this time, the CO2 control system must be closed.
4. As the CO2 incubator sensor is calibrated at the saturation humidity, the humidifier plate must be filled with sterilized water.
5. After several months of operation of the incubator, the water in the tank may decrease due to volatilization, and water should be added when the low water indicator (WLow12) is on. First, open the overflow pipe, add water from the water injection hole with a rubber hose funnel to turn off the low water level indicator, and then measure and add water, and then plug the overflow hole.
6. When the display temperature exceeds the set temperature by 1℃, the alarm indicator light (OverTemp7) will light up and make a sharp alarm sound. At this time, the power supply should be turned off for 30 minutes; If the power switch (Power20) is still over-temperature, turn off the power and report to the maintenance personnel.
7. Minimize the time you spend opening glass doors.
8. If the carbon dioxide incubator is not used for a long time, the water in the working room must be removed before closing, and the glass door must be opened for ventilation for 24 hours before closing.
How to disinfect a CO2 incubator?
The major factor leading to cell culture failure is the pollution of CO2 incubator pollution. Therefore we should take disinfection measures to reduce or prevent the happening of pollution.
— Because the inner environment of the CO2 incubator is damp and hot, it is easy to breed bacterium, so we can add 2ml Bromogeramine in 1000ml water.
— Please regularly disinfect the air in the incubator with alcohol and ultraviolet light, The water in the disk should be changed at least once a week to control contamination, maintain adaptive evaporation, and reduce the rate of microbial growth in the incubator.
— All CO2 incubator in our company has the function of ultraviolet disinfection, some of the types also has designed the function of HEPA filter, which can filter the air in the incubator and remove 99.97% of particles above 0.3um. We also design a function that can make an incubator to achieve a high temperature and humid environment to kill the pollution microorganisms.
How to buy CO2 Incubator?
If you are interested in our CO2 Incubator or have any questions, please write an e-mail to info@antiteck.com, we will reply to you as soon as possible.