The Importance of Temperature Consistency in Freezers and Coolrooms for Sterile Environments

15 March 2018

Temperature consistency is a factor that safely preserves the contents of a sterile environment. Think about a laboratory, a clinical domain. There are tissue samples stored in here, plus shelves of bacterial cultures. Every variable is controlled in here. Thanks to that carefully regulated laboratory setting, the biological samples behave in a predictable manner. Now, however, the lab freezer is breaking down. Temperature consistency has gone out the window.

Introducing Experimental Bias 

The experiment is a bust. Those monitored results are meaningless because the intended thermal envelope became biased. That lab freezer or cooling chamber, designed to absolutely maintain a set temperature level, is no longer capable of producing a baseline artificial climate, one that acts as an experiment benchmark. Imagine a research project that’s recording this prejudiced data. In no uncertain terms, that experiment has gone awry because the sterile environment lacked an objective focal point. Uncontaminated by outside factors, the scientifically accurate device was still impacted by the poorly regulated temperature.

The Importance of Temperature Consistency 

This problem hits medical facilities hard. When flu season hits, there are vaccines ready to mitigate the spread. What if the coolroom containing the vaccine phials experiences a temperature spike? The thermal transient either disables the potent curative or entirely neutralizes the stuff. A large pharmaceuticals establishment might absorb this costly mistake, but a small clinic could be ruined by this catastrophic incident. Besides the cost to the clinic, there’s the fact that there’s going to be a shortage of booster shots. Lives rely on those shots. Hospital labs or vaccine production facilities, the impact of a failing lab freezer, one that employs a sterile environment, will likely be felt keenly.

Determining Remedial Actions 

First off, intelligently monitored freezers and coolrooms in laboratory situations must be calibrated. Obviously, the digital thermostat has to work as it’s supposed to, but that degree of functionality isn’t enough. Granted, in a food-based operation, a couple of degrees of thermal variance might be acceptable, but even a single whole degree of miscalibrated warmth could ruin the biological samples we’ve described today. No, not only must the device work as designed, it must be meticulously calibrated so that it provides a reliable thermal baseline.

Lives are lost when clinically accurate freezers and coolrooms don’t do their job. The environment inside these carefully monitored enclosures may indeed be sterile, but that key control element doesn’t mean much if the temperature envelope in here is in error. Have the device calibrated by a lab-compliant instrumentation correction lab, a place that adheres to the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) guidelines. Fortify that action by setting all temperature alarms and obeying all good storage practices.

Mark Connelly
C&M Coolroom Services
E-mail: markconnelly@cmcoolrooms.com.au
Mobile: 0412 536 315

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