The process of researching and purchasing the right fume hood for your laboratory can seem overwhelming and choosing the right one is crucial to ensuring safety from dangerous chemicals and vapors in your lab.
Here are a few important questions and considerations to help you choose the right fume hood for your lab.
- What type of work are you conducting inside your fume hood
- Review your experiment methods and material lists.
- Document which chemicals, or solvents, you will be using and the concentration of each chemical
- Determine the evaporation rate of the chemicals.
- Chemical solvents evaporate at different rates and if not accounted for, can overwhelm the fume hood by evaporating at a rate too fast for the fume hood to ventilate
- Chemical solvents evaporate at different rates and if not accounted for, can overwhelm the fume hood by evaporating at a rate too fast for the fume hood to ventilate
- Review your experiment methods and material lists.
- What size lab hood do you need?
- Will you have equipment inside your laboratory fume hood?
- How large is the equipment?
- If your application involves extra-large equipment, such as drum containers, a walk-in fume hood might be appropriate.
- How many people will be working simultaneously under the fume hood?
- Depth – Consider buffer space.
- Perform your work at least 6 inches behind the sash to ensure a safety buffer zone is maintained.
- Height – Make sure your lab has ample height clearance for a larger bench top or floor mounted fume hood.
- How will fumes be filtered and exhausted?
- Duct or ductless
- A ducted fume hood connects to a remote blower of the facility HVAC system to safely remove noxious or dangerous chemicals from the work area.
- A ductless fume hood contains an integral blower, carbon filters to capture chemical vapors and, if required, HEPA/ULPA particle filters to allow recirculation of exhaust air.
- Duct or ductless
- Which ventilation system should you use for a ducted fume hood?
- A ducted fume hood has two (2) options for ventilation control, constant air volume (CAV) and variable air volume (VAV).
- To choose between CAV and VAV, you will need to take into consideration both operating duration and budget.
- To choose between CAV and VAV, you will need to take into consideration both operating duration and budget.
- A ducted fume hood has two (2) options for ventilation control, constant air volume (CAV) and variable air volume (VAV).
- What are the Operating costs and install of a fume hood?
- Operating Costs:
- Ductless fume hood = the majority of operating costs for a ductless fume hood will come from filter charges.
- Ducted fume hood = The cost of operating a ducted fume hood can be calculated as a function of how much air the blower is exhausting. Thus, the operating cost increases as a function of volume of air (DFM) being moved.
- Operating Costs:
- What accessories will you need for your fume hood?
- Fume hood accessories include base cabinets, light fixtures, airflow monitors, electrical outlets, cup sinks, and service fixtures for water, vacuum, or gas.
As a leader in scientific equipment repair and medical equipment calibration, Scientific Instrument Center work with many corporations, universities, and hospital providing the highest level of laboratory services. Whether we are providing biosafety cabinet calibration or medical equipment calibration, we keep your equipment performing to industry codes and regulations.
Get a free consultation from one of our cleanroom specialists. Call (614) 771-4700.
