LAMINAR FLOW HOOD &

NATURAL MEDIAS
Introduction
A laminar flow cabinet or laminar flow closet or tissue culture hood is a carefully
enclosed bench designed to prevent contamination of semiconductor wafers,
biological samples, or any particle sensitive materials. Air is drawn through
a HEPA filter and blown in a very smooth, laminar flow towards the user. The cabinet
is usually made of stainless steel with no gaps or joints where spores might collect
Purpose

In varying degrees, a laminar flow biological safety cabinet is designed

to provide three basic types of protection:

Personnel protection from harmful agents inside the cabinet.

Product protection to avoid contamination of the work, experiment, or

process.

Environmental protection from contaminants contained within the

cabinet.
How a laminar flow hood functions
The air is passed through a HEPA filter which removes all airborne
contamination to maintain sterile conditions.
It consists of a filter pad, a fan and a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulates Air)
filter.
The fan sucks the air through the filter pad where dust is trapped.
Pre-filtered air has to pass the HEPA filter where fungi, bacteria, dust etc are
removed.
At last sterile air flows into the working (flasking) area.
 Types of Laminar flow hood
Horizontal Laminar
Flow Cabinets
Horizontal Laminar Flow Cabinets
receive their name due to the direction
of air flow which comes from above but
then changes direction and is processed
across the work in a horizontal
direction. The constant flow of filtered
air provides material and product
protection.
Vertical Laminar
Flow Cabinets
Vertical Laminar Flow Cabinets
function equally well as horizontal
Laminar Flow Cabinets with the
laminar air directed vertically
downwards onto the working area. The
air can leave the working area via holes
in the base. Vertical flow cabinets can
provide greater operator protection.
 Classification of laminar flow hood
Class I Class II Class III
Laminar flow hoods Laminar flow hoods are Biosafety cabinets are
offer significant levels of designed for work gas-tight, and they
protection to laboratory involving BSL-1, 2, and 3 provide the highest
personnel and to the materials, and they also attainable level of
environment when used provide an aseptic protection to personnel
with good microbiological environment necessary for and the environment.
techniques, but they do cell culture experiments. A Class III biosafety
not provide cultures A Class II biosafety cabinet is required for
protection from cabinet should be used for work involving known
contamination. handling potentially human pathogens and
They are similar in hazardous materials (e.g., other BSL-4 materials.
design and air flow primate-derived cultures,
characteristics to virally infected cultures,
chemical fume hoods. radioisotopes,
carcinogenic or toxic
reagents).
Construction

The typical laminar flow cabinet consists of three parts:

A High Efficiency Particulate Air filter (HEPA filter) and pre-filter.
A properly sized blower fan.
A box to hold it all together and and provide a plenum for laminar flow.
STEP 1: Choose a filter
STEP 2: Size the fan
STEP 3: Putting it all together
HEPA (High-efficiency particulate arrestance ) Filter
HEPA filters are type of air filter that are composed of a mat of randomly
arranged fibres [The fibres are typically composed of fiberglass and possess
diameters between 0.5 and 2.0 micrometers
Key factors affecting its functions are fibre diameter, filter thickness,
and face velocity
The air space between HEPA filter fibres is typically much greater than
0.3 μm.
The common assumption that a HEPA filter acts like a sieve where particles
smaller than the largest opening can pass through is incorrect and impractical.
Unlike membrane filters at this pore size, where particles as wide as the
largest opening or distance between fibres can not pass in between them at all,
HEPA filters are designed to target much smaller pollutants and particles.
Mechanism
These particles are trapped (they stick to a
fibre) through a combination of the
following three mechanisms:
Interception where particles following
a line of flow in the air stream come
within one radius of a fibre and adhere to
it.
Impaction where larger particles are
unable to avoid fibres by following the
curving contours of the air stream and are
forced to embed in one of them directly;
this effect increases with diminishing fibre
separation and higher air flow velocity.
Diffusion an enhancing mechanism that
is a result of the collision with gas
molecules by the smallest particles,
especially those below 0.1 µm in diameter,
which are thereby impeded and delayed in
their path through the filter.
Uses

Before you start flasking in your laminar flow hood you should do the
following actions.
Turn on the blower and wipe out the sterile area with an alcohol soaked
piece of kitchen paper.
Let the blower run continuously for 30 minutes. When this time has passed
repeat the wipe out of the sterile area with an alcohol soaked piece of
kitchen paper.
Special Precautions

Hazardous Work
Allergens, Embryotoxins and Teratogens
Chemicals of High Acute Toxicity
Chemicals of High Chronic Toxicity
Animal Research
Radioactive materials
Recombinant DNA
Infectious Agents