What to Look for When Buying a Pharmaceutical Refrigerator

When choosing a pharmaceutical, laboratory or vaccine fridge, temperature control is of the highest priority. Fragile biological samples must be kept within a precise temperature range to retain their integrity, especially when the fridge is being frequently opened and accessed.

To safeguard precious samples and vaccines, it’s essential to consider the style of fridge, its thermometer and temperature tracking capabilities, along with its failure systems.

In this blog we will run through these important requirements and introduce some of the pioneering laboratory fridges that we have in our range at Bioline Global.

Upright, Chest, Ultra-Cold and Energy Efficient Lab Fridges

Vaccine storage requires continuous low temperatures of between 2°C and 8°C in a fridge or between -50° C and -15° C in a freezer with the thermostat set at the midpoint in both instances to ensure temperature stability.

Ineffective temperature stability is the leading cause for vaccine failure, and a significant cost to your laboratory.

In particular, front-opening fridges are a primary concern to laboratory technicians and researchers because temperature loss can occur every time you open the fridge door, due to the molecular structure of cold air.

Cold air is more densely packed and heavier than hot air, and consequently upright fridges must work much harder to maintain their internal temperature range. Not only is the temperature more unstable in an upright fridge, but the fridge itself must use more energy.

Which is why at Bioline Global we offer Stirling Ultracold Energy Efficient Freezers purpose built for medical requirements in both upright and chest configurations in three sizes from 25 litres to 780 litres that can resist the forces of ambient air when opened.

Our energy efficient stirling freezers also generate less noise, discharge less heat, and consume less power than other laboratory fridges and freezers.

Our Stirling refrigeration systems operate efficiently regardless of your cooling demands because they can self modulate and have been observed to improve energy efficiency by more than 70 percent. This is because Stirling systems are able to run at incredibly low temperatures to produce much cooler and more efficient refrigeration.

Thermometers, Temperature Monitoring and Digital Displays

Vaccine and sample protection is safeguarded by having accurate temperature displays and monitoring. At the minimum, temperatures should be recorded every 30 seconds and precisely reflect the temperature of your samples, rather than the air temperature.

For this reason, laboratory fridges should have a digital display system (DDS) and digital data logging (DDL) that is not prone to malfunction or the effects of a power outage. Both DDS and DDL should be as consistent as your fridge running temperature. If it runs on a battery, a low battery warning should be clearly displayed in advance of complete battery depletion.

For best practice, a back up digital thermometer and data logging system should be used at all times. Bioline carries a wide variety of data loggers specific to their applications, including transport and time loggers, vaccine data loggers, cold chain loggers, USB in-transport loggers, and temperature and humidity data loggers.

Failure Alarm Systems and Temperature Protection

These days we can find a lost phone remotely, so it is only expected that we have remote protection when it comes to the temperature control of our critical samples as well.

Purpose built laboratory alarm systems should operate independently from the rest of the fridge and feature attention grabbing alarms. They should raise the alarm for a range of problems, from power outages to internal malfunctions.

Our Upright Freezers to -85 have full alarms for high/low temperatures, door alarms and remote alarm contact, however, our entire range is also compatible with our  state-of-the-art Laboratory Temperature and Humidity Monitoring System products. We recommend employing two failure and temperature alarm systems for optimised safety.

The Best Laboratory, Pharmaceutical and Vaccine Fridges in Australia

At Bioline Global, we help ensure your laboratory equipment is up-to-date and working with absolute precision. You will find all essential laboratory fridges and freezers in our product range. Please visit our online store or reach out to us on +61 (02) 46660010 or [email protected] for more information.