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Laminar Air Flow
Laminar Air Flow
In a laminar flow hood the air is passed through a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulates Air)
filter which removes all airborne contamination to maintain sterile conditions.
A laminar flow hood 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. After that the
prefiltered air has to pass the HEPA filter where contaminating fungi, bacteria, dust etc are
removed. Now the sterile air flows into the working (flasking) area where you can do all your
flasking work without risk of contamination.
Before you start building your flow hood you have to decide if you prefer a vertical or
horizontal air flow in the flasking area. In a vertical flow the air moves from the top of the
working area to the bottom and leaves the flasking area through holes in the base. When you
use a flow hood with horizontal air flow the air moves from the back of the working area to
the front.
horizontal air flow vertical air flow
Steam method
advantages disadvantages
advantages disadvantages
To prefilter the air the company Luftfilterbau recommended us the filter pad HS-E/360. To
choose the HEPA filte you have to keep in mind the following things:
• the HEPA filter has to remove all (99,9 %) airborne material (filterclass H 14
according to EN 1822)
• the HEPA filter should be big enough to have enough space available in the flasking
area
We ordered the HEPA Filter HS-Mikro SF (30,5 cm width, 61 cm height and 7,8 cm depth).
On the website of Luftfilterbau at "Info" you can find a very good guideline how to choose
the right filter and how filters function.
When choosing the blower we have to make sure that it is able to transport the required
quantity of air through the filter pad and the HEPA filter. We know the dimension of the
HEPA filter and the required air speed in the working area (0,5 m/s) so we then can calculate
the airflow per hour.
width of the HEPA filter: 0,305 m
height of the HEPA filter: 0,61 m
required air speed: 0,5 m/s
When we multiply this result by 3600 seconds (60 * 60) we get the airflow in m³/h.
On many english websites you´ll find the airflow in Cubic Foot per Minute (CFM) and not in
cubic meters per hour (m³/h). One ft (foot) is 0.3048 m so one cubic foot is 0,0283 m³ (0,3048
m * 0,3048 m * 0,3048 m).
In the next step we have to read from the diagram below how much pressure is necessary to
transport 334,89 m³/h air through the HEPA Filter. An airflow of 334,89 m³/h is about 60% of
the nominal airflow so the required pressure is 150 Pa.
Now we have all necessary data to choose a blower (334,89 m³/h at 150 Pa). In the picture
below you can see the diagram of our blower (centrifugal blower G2E140-AI28-01) which we
bought from Ziehl-ebm GmbH.
Construction manual
In the picture below you can see the plan of our laminar flow hood which we built of 19 mm
press boards. It is recommended to use a board made of transparent plexiglas for the top of the
sterile flasking area to let as much light in as possible.
Side view of the laminar flow hood with open filter unit
Total: 304,37 €
• 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.
The picture below show the sterile area of our laminar flow hood. For cutting plants we use a
petri dish (made of glass) which we clean (sterilize) with an alcohol soaked piece of kitchen
paper.