Benchtop Fume Hoods have been a relevant instrument in the research field by serving various functions for quite a long time now. It is one of the safety devices that you can use in your lab if your work includes dealing with significantly toxic and harmful substances. It is absolutely needless to mention the necessity of the diverse chemical and considerably harmful substances in today’s world for expanding the scope and horizon of science and research.
Therefore, it is important to develop a basic level of knowledge of a device that can help you work with a range of toxicants in a lab space. Often, clients get confused regarding choosing the right variant of benchtop fume hood because of the overwhelming diversity. To address such issues, in this article, you will be learning about some key information in this regard that you may consider checking before making a purchase.
Do your research:
Before you start your process of purchasing a benchtop fume hood for your lab, it is important that you do your research. In the scientific world, it is an essential part of every process. You first need to assess the basic and specific requirements of your lab. You also need to assess the work nature—whether it includes handling of harmful or lethal chemicals and substances. Jot down all your requirements on a piece of paper and run an extensive search online for the available models.
In the next step, you have totally the list of requirements with the features available in standard benchtop fume hood models. It is impossible to get a model offering all the features you need. But the good news is you can at least match 80% of your demands and then request the manufacturer for specific customizations. You need to ensure that the manufacturer you choose is in this business for quite some time and has a decent global or local reputation.
Book an appointment:
After you have completed the first step of the process, you can book or schedule an appointment with the manufacturer stating the model you are interested in. It is recommended to contact the manufacturer because this can help you solve your customization issues. You can ask the team for their guidance in conceptualizing a predictable model of the fume hood. Since they are experts and know the standard laboratory practices, they can assist you with the conceptualization step.
Investigate the body material:
This marks the third step of the entire process and is one of the most crucial ones. Always try to enquire about the body or building material of the benchtop fume hood. There is a variety of materials available both online and offline such as—glass, stainless steel, PVC, etc. Each of them is designed for a definite purpose.
Hence, you should enquire about the specialty of the body material. You can take help from the product engineers who can fluently explain the features and specialties of the body materials to you for better understanding. You should also check with your list of requirements if any of the specialties is in sync with your experimental demands.
Study the specifications:
After having an overview of the body materials of the fume hood, you will naturally have an enhanced knowledge about how a benchtop fume hood works. Subsequently, in the following step, you will be required to enquire for more specifications. For example, many benchtop fume hoods do not offer a wide range of chemicals to work with. This means such models are not built with chemical resisting materials.
Besides, benchtop fume hoods require a number of effective air filters that help with the sterilizing process—including and not limited to the HEPA or High-Efficiency Particulate Air filter, Acid sulfur carbon filter, Mixed Bed carbon filter, Radioisotope carbon filter, etc. You should also consider additional features such as automatic cleaning and drying, oxy or CO2 regulations.
Get accustomed to the process of maintenance:
It is known by now that the process of cleaning and maintaining any lab device is not an easy job and it gets worse if the device is in constant use. Even if you have a small-scale project that does not require the benchtop fume hood to be extensively used, it is a good laboratory practice to clean and maintain the device on a weekly or monthly basis. Every device has its own set of elaborate guidelines for cleaning and maintenance. Therefore, you should also take this into consideration when deciding to buy the right variant for your lab.
These were some of the useful tip and tricks to select the correct and perfect variant of the benchtop fume hood for your lab. It is not rocket science to pick the best one out of the lot. However, it does need some serious effort and patience from your side.
