In almost every medical office, a specialized lab freezer is perhaps the most important equipment available. This is the reason you have to be cautious when buying a scientific refrigerator. Considering the sensitive nature of medical and scientific research, buying the wrong lab refrigerator is a costly affair. For starters, it is easy for your medical and research products to get destroyed. Without a good medical refrigerator, it is almost next to impossible to effectively store things like vaccines. This means that considering their importance in the healthcare profession, medical refrigerators and freezers should maintain quality standards in design and function. These important equipment must also guarantee reliability. For first time buyers and especially people not practicing medicine or professional research, choosing the right scientific refrigerator can be a nightmare. The right medical grade refrigerator should be one that serves the unique needs of the medical or research facility. This means that buying pharmaceutical freezers should not be treated in the same manner you would purchase a household freezer. Below are factors to consider when choosing a scientific refrigerator.
Placement
When it comes to choosing a scientific refrigerator, the design is either that the pharmaceutical grade refrigerator is either in-built or freestanding in terms of placement. Depending on the facility, the placement will always be determined by the size available. If you intend to have a scientific refrigerator that will be located under the counter and with several cabinets on either side, then such a scientific refrigerator should be designed for in-built installation. On the other hand, freestanding refrigerators do not require an exterior fan. This means that placing a freestanding medical refrigerator as an undercounter lab refrigerator can compromise the ventilation of the medical freezer. As a result, the sides will most likely overheat. When choosing a scientific refrigerator, take into consideration the amount of space you will need around it. Built-in vaccine storage refrigerators will definitely cost you more but the price is totally worth it. If you are looking for cold storage for medical and biological research products, this is what you need for your lab.
Temperature Requirements
For medical freezers, there is no standard temperature required to store biological samples and vaccines. The recommended temperature range for biological and medical samples is 2 to 8ºC. However, a typical scientific refrigerator will still experience some temperature fluctuations. For advanced medical freezers, temperature fluctuations should not be more than 2ºC away from the thermostat point. Depending on the model you are using, lab freezers have varying temperature requirements. There are certain products that require ultra-low temperatures that only certain lab freezers can be able to offer. In most cases, you will have to pay more for medical refrigerators that can maintain ultra-low temperatures. There are units that can reach to as low as -45º. Obviously, you need to know the temperature requirements of things you will be stocking in the medical freezer before making any buying decision. For example, things such as biological samples, vaccines, plasma and other sensitive biological materials have very specific temperature needs. It is best to know the temperature details beforehand so that you don’t end up buying the wrong scientific refrigerator.
