Researchers Are Breathing Easier In Today's Scientific Labs

Scientific Labs AUTHOR: REBECCA ANDREWS, p.23-24. Scientific laboratories have never been singled out as especially pleasant places to work. For generations, many scientists have had to put up with poor lighting, ugly furniture, and the pervasive odors of solvents and solutions. But this picture of the typical lab is changing. Facilities being built or renovated today show a strong emphasis on workers' health and safety, as well as environmental concerns, making these labs safer and more pleasant workplaces than those built just a few years ago. AUTHOR: REBECCA ANDREWS, p.23 While installing fume hoods may be the most difficult and time-consuming part of outfitting a lab, a scientist involved in this task must also consider other aspects of lab furnishings, such as benches, casework, and overall layout. Brian Schuler, laboratory furniture specialist for Philadelphia-based VWR Scientific, notes that the people who use a lab "are the ones that come up with the most efficient design" when it comes to laying out a lab. However, he says, while scientists tend to think about where to put furniture, they often neglect the issues of getting services, such as water, gas, and electricity, where they need them. Bob Haugen, institutional product manager for St. Charles Manufacturing Co. in St. Charles, Ill., says that it is important that university representatives get feedback from the people who will be using the lab as to their preferences for casework and other furniture. One aspect that seems trivial but can be explosive is color. "This is often put off or forgotten about, and it can be a very touchy issue," says Haugen. "You will alienate your lab crew if you don't get input." Another decision that benefits from user input is the type and configuration of drawers and cabinets. Haugen remembers seeing one lab in which an architect or designer thought that a cabinet with "15 skinny little drawers" would be ideal for storing pipettes, but, as it turned out, the researchers in the lab found them virtually useless. It is also important to consider the appropriate types of doors on wall cabinets, says Haugen. Open shelves may be appropriate for storing equipment that is used frequently, while stainless-steel doors should be used for items such as drugs or other substances that ought to be kept out of sight. Glass doors may be called for to store often-used standard chemical formulations. One question that is sometimes difficult to resolve is whether researchers' desks should be located within the lab or here. Haugen stresses the importance of good ventilation. A general guideline in the industry, he says, is that if the total air in the lab cannot be exchanged at least 10 times in an hour, desks should be placed here, to reduce the amount of time researchers spend in the lab. Furthermore, Haugen adds, if tables and benches are perpetually cluttered with chemistry equipment, "people will be parking beakers and flasks on desk areas, and that's not any good." Frank Mallory, a chemistry professor at Bryn Mawr College, says that his department prefers to have desks set up in the chemistry laboratories, but they have taken pains to assure the safety and comfort of people sitting at desks. "[Researchers] are part of safety monitoring," he says, "and if you remove them [to a separate office], you remove one of your safety monitoring devices." The school's new labs will be set up with a "safety gradient," explains Mallory. The desks will be located at one end of the room ("near the windows, of course"), while the fume hoods will be at the other end. Exits will be provided at both ends. Richard Malkin, chairman of the department of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley, was closely involved with the planning and design of the school's Genetics and Plant Biology Building, completed in the autumn of 1989. Malkin's responsibilities included dealing with safety issues unique to his part of the country. "We moved into the new building two weeks after the big earthquake [that hit northern California]," says Malkin. "If you live in Ohio, you don't worry about bolting things down or putting lips on shelves" to keep chemicals from spilling over during a quake. The labs built in the new Berkeley building were virtually identical in furniture and layout, says Malkin, but the scientists in charge of the labs were given additional discretionary funds for customizing labs after they were built. This proved to be economical while still giving scientists a chance to individualize their labs. One strategy that Malkin says was particularly worthwhile was to insist that one entire laboratory be completed--including benches, casework, electricity, and other hookups--several months ahead of the rest. This gave Malkin and colleagues a chance to inspect the lab and find problems before they were built into the remaining labs. Finally, Malkin stresses the importance of having someone knowledgeable about construction and design who, throughout the planning process, will represent the scientists who will be using the lab. "The problem is the average person--and I'm an average person--doesn't know a lot about architecture. . . . You have to look at blueprints, and you don't know beans about this." Mallory says that an architect experienced in laboratory design, who will be patient and help the client make the right decisions about designing and outfitting the lab, is a crucial part of the process. "The decision-making goes on and on," says Mallory, and at times he is struck by the magnitude of even seemingly trivial decisions. "I keep thinking of those people, 55 years from now, looking back and saying, `What crazy guy put that here?' " Bryn Mawr College recently broke ground on a $15 million laboratory construction and renovation project, including a 58,000-square-foot chemistry building and science library. Frank Mallory, W. Alton Jones Professor of Chemistry at the college, has been intimately involved with the project from the beginning, and has acted as the primary department liaison with the building's architects and suppliers. Mallory says that one of the main things that distinguishes new laboratories, especially in the chemistry discipline, from old, or even from labs built a decade ago, is the number of fume hoods now being installed. In fact, he says, "the whole air-handling concept has changed" in recent years, with entire buildings being configured or reconfigured to provide excellent ventilation throughout. The Bryn Mawr building, designed by Ellenzweig Associates Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., will include a mechanical penthouse that will house centralized air-handling equipment. "That's wonderful for the general ambience and health of the people inside," says Mallory. While good ventilation is important in terms of safety and health, it is also an aesthetic consideration for Mallory. "I hate to walk into labs that smell," he says. "I wanted to make every effort to make this chemistry building a nonsmeller." Beyond the olfactory consideration, Mallory is also sensitive to making the environment visually appealing. Indeed, many of the decisions Mallory made, such as choosing wood cabinets and putting windows in every lab, were based on aesthetics. "The people who work in these labs spend an enormous fraction of their lives in these labs," he points out, "and we want them to be a friendly place" (see accompanying story). In purchasing hoods, Mallory says that he and others in the department "called up labs all over the place to get recommendations" for hood manufacturers. "People have very strong feelings about hoods," he says, "but they're not consistent. Everyone has their favorites and their least favorites." He says that installation practices and the services the company provides were at least as important as the workmanship on the hoods themselves when it came to finally choosing a vendor. Bob Haugen, institutional product manager for St. Charles Manufacturing Co., based in St. Charles, Ill., says that while his company sells a variety of lab furniture, it takes a disproportionate amount of time and energy to coordinate fume hoods with the rest of the laboratory. "More trades meet at the fume hood than anything that goes into the lab," he says. Plumbing, electricity, heating and cooling systems, and ventilation all must be taken into account in choosing hoods and placing them in the lab. A typical six-foot fume hood, says Haugen, operating with the sash all the way up, draws about 1,350 cubic feet of air per minute from the room, and exhausts this air outside the building via ductwork. If the air in the room is not being replaced fast enough, the hood won't function properly, and fumes may escape into the room. It is crucial, he says, that when fume hoods are installed in a new or renovated lab, sufficient replacement air is available, and that the building's heating and cooling systems can keep up with the demand. The cost of pumping out heated air in the winter and cooled air in the summer can cost several thousand dollars annually, says Haugen. But hood exhaust systems are being developed that "try to reduce the appetite of the fume hood," while still maintaining an air throughput velocity of 100 feet per minute, the minimum considered safe. One option is a "low-constant volume" fume hood, which is sized so that it functions properly with the sash halfway down, allowing the air flow to be cut in half. Another type, which Haugen says has become popular in the last five years, is the variable air volume (VAV) hood. A VAV fume hood can function with the sash in a variety of positions, because it has a sensor that slows down the exhaust fan when the sash is lowered, resulting in a constant air velocity. A third alternative, which lowers energy costs without reducing air flow, is an auxiliary air fume hood. In this system, most of the air that feeds the hood is piped in from outside the building, thereby reducing the use of expensive heated or cooled room air. In addition to the ventilation system, options in liner material, hood size, plumbing and power hookups, and a variety of others aspects of fume hood design can be specified. In fact, says Haugen, virtually every fume hood sold by St. Charles "is customized with respect to something or other." While lining materials exhibit resistivity to various materials, Haugen says that it is important to realize that "every lining has an Achilles' heel." For example, as Haugen points out in "Laboratory Fume Hood Design and Use," a booklet he wrote under the auspices of St. Charles, while a stainless steel liner is resistant to many acids, including perchloric acid, it is susceptible to hydrogen chloride vapor. Haugen advises buyers to try to tailor the fume hood to specific applications, and avoid the tendency to order a fume hood intended to suit every need. The cost of a fume hood can range from as little as $1,500 to more than $100,000, says Haugen, the price increasing as specialty electronics, plumbing services, expensive liners such as stainless steel, and complicated ventilation options are incorporated into the hood. A thumbnail figure he uses in preliminary cost estimates is $1,000 per linear foot. Sometimes, it may be difficult or impossible to install a standard fume hood. The necessary ductwork may be prohibitively expensive; the building's ventilation system may not be able to support the added burden; or perhaps a fume hood that can be moved around the lab or taken to sites outside a lab is required. In these situations, some researchers turn to portable, ductless fume hoods. Instead of removing used air from the building, these hoods recirculate it back into the room, after passing it through a series of filters to remove contaminants. Irwin Leibson, national sales manager for Heat Systems Inc., a Farmingdale, N.Y., manufacturer of ductless fume hoods, says that while a ductless fume hood costs only slightly less than a comparable stationary hood, a lab can realize a savings of $2,000 to $15,000 in ductwork costs. Heat Systems' hoods include two filters: a prefilter, to remove dust and other particulate material, and a carbon filter for removing or neutralizing chemicals. The prefilters need to be replaced every month to every six months, says Leibson, at a cost ranging from $100 to $130 per filter. The carbon filters, which are impregnated with various chemicals to neutralize specific chemical fumes, cost from $130 to $500, depending on their size and composition, and need to be replaced every six to 18 months. However, he warns, "these are not the panacea people make them out to be," and should be used as an adjunct to standard hoods, rather than a replacement. St. Charles' Haugen offers the following tips for would-be fume hood buyers involved in building or renovating labs: Make sure that the building's ventilation and heating and cooling systems can replace the extra volume of air being pumped out by the hoods being installed. Make sure the air-handling strategy for the fume hoods matches the work that will be done in them. If a worker needs to run a hood with the sash wide open, so that tall equipment can be manipulated, a low-constant volume hood may not be acceptable. Let lab designers know what services--such as gas, water, or a vacuum system--will be needed at each hood early in the project, not when the installations are nearly complete. When renovating a building, avoid putting hoods in basements. It is difficult and costly to install the replacement air and exhaust systems necessary. "If you have a choice," says Haugen, "a basement is the worst place to do it." Locate hoods away from doorways and heavy traffic, to minimize air flow turbulence around the hoods. For safety reasons, don't locate fume hoods near the only exit to the lab: "You don't want to have to run the gauntlet to get out of the room!"

Researchers Are Breathing Easier In Today's Scientific Labs

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