Berkeley™ Fume Hood

Esco has raised the stakes in the laboratory fume hood manufacturing industry with its exclusive licensing of the Berkeley Fume Hood patented technology developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA. This is the much talked about technological concept set to revolutionise the way fume hoods are constructed.

A fume hood is primarily a box-like structure placed on bench tops and designed to capture, contain and exhaust air that goes through its front opening called a sash. To aid the movement of air in the desired direction, an external blower connected by a ducting system to the hood top draws air in through the hood which is then exhausted out of the room where the hood is installed. Herein lies the limitation where energy is concerned. As fume hoods typically exhaust large volumes of air while in operation, they also remove air which is already cooled or heated by the air-conditioning system, incurring higher costs in addition to the cost of powering the blower.

The Berkeley™ Fume Hood with its "push-pull" method of containing and exhausting fumes, uses small supply fans built-in at the top and bottom of the sash to produce low-velocity airflow that gently push air into the hood. This is unlike an air curtain which uses high velocity airflow to do the job. Simply put, it requires less volume of air to exhaust (average reduction by about 50 to 70 percent).

To top it off, its prototype has actually undergone the ASHRAE 110-1995 test protocol and achieved containment with 70% flow reduction at 0.2 m/s airflow velocity. Soon, Esco's new class of fume hoods, Esco Berkeley Hoods that are based on this technology, will have all limitations relating to its design and assembly removed, paving the way for a truly effective and energy-efficient new arrival that virtually stands out from the rest.

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