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Biosafety cabinets are staples in modern laboratories, and one organization works to continually set and update basic requirements for their design, performance, operation and cleanability--that organization is NSF International (formerly the National Sanitation Foundation). NSF is an independent, not-for-profit, non-governmental organization established in 1944, and it first published the standard for biosafety cabinets--known as Standard 49--in 1976.
As the industry has evolved over time, so has Standard 49. In fact, it was last updated in 2014--that is, until NSF Joint Committee members determined during their annual meetings that it was time to prepare another revision with updates to testing and decontamination procedures and descriptions of available cabinet types in the marketplace. On March 17, 2017, in conjunction with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), NSF released the newest version of its standard governing Class II (laminar flow) biosafety cabinets.
Like all updates before it, NSF/ANSI Standard 49:2016--titled Biosafety Cabinetry: Design, Construction, Performance, and Field Certification--provides information relevant to certifiers, end-users, facilities managers and others in the field of biosafety.
The newest version of NSF/ANSI:49 is different from previous versions in several key ways--here's what you need to know:
New options for decontamination
Annex G was updated to add Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide (VHP) as a decontamination agent, joining the ranks of other sporicidal agents, chlorine dioxide and formaldehyde. The addition of a third decontamination option can benefit certifiers in particular, said Jim Wagner, owner of Controlled Environments Consulting, LLC and voting Joint Committee member.
"From a certifier's perspective, you need to be able to bring a decontamination method into a client and say it's in the standard for credibility purposes," Wagner said.
Some Joint Committee members see other benefits, too. Jim Hunter, Senior Products Engineer at Labconco and voting Joint Committee member since 2000, said VHP can work quickly when used properly, decontaminating a sealed cabinet in as few as three hours--a big difference when compared to a traditional formaldehyde decontamination that can take up to 12 hours. He also noted that the capital expenditure for a VHP system is much higher--a fact that must be considered by facilities managers when examining this new decontamination option.
Standard 49 was also updated to clarify that chlorine...