Flame Sterilization with Safety Laboratory Gas Burners

by Michael Stragies
Product Manager, WLD-TEC GmbH

Media flame sterilization is a frequent application for many laboratories in the life science fields of cell biology, virology, neurology, and oncology, among others. These are generally state-of-the-art labs with sophisticated instrumentation. And yet you’d be surprised how many still use the traditional—and highly dangerous—Bunsen burner.

Bunsen burners operate on highly flammable gas or alcohol, and are often left burning because restarting can be bothersome or impractical.

Safety laboratory gas burners are a wise alternative. When they arrived on the market in the late 1980s they were large and simplistic, while today’s instruments offer state-of-the-art design, convenience, and safety.

Safety Cabinet Applications
Safety laboratory gas burners are ideal for use in biological safety cabinets. Such cabinets are carefully designed to prevent contamination of biological samples by drawing air flow in from the front of the cabinet and expelling it either outside the building or back into the room once it has been made safe through filtration.

A continuously burning flame would disturb this air flow while causing heat damage to the cabinet structure. Safety burners, however, offer precisely timed burns that keep stress to the cabinet and its filters to a minimum.

Gas burners used in the tight confines of a safety cabinet need to have a small footprint. They also need to have a housing built from UV-resistant materials since most safety cabinets are sterilized by ultraviolet lamps. Housings made of stainless steel and glass work exceptionally well. They are capable of withstanding extreme lab conditions as well as the sterilizing detergents often used in conjunction with UV rays.

Methods for fueling these burners vary. It is no longer necessary to use a costly, central gas supply for all the burners in the lab. Today’s safety gas burners are very efficient and can be run off small propane/butane gas cartridges located within—or next to—the cabinet. These burners do, however, require electricity, and since safety cabinets rarely have a sufficient number of 110 V outlets, battery-powered burners are available, often with rechargeable batteries.

And then there is the issue of safety—a major concern when operating a product that uses flammable gas. The touch-free flame ignition feature built into most new burners not only ensures sterility of the work environment, it enhances worker safety. Most safety burners are also equipped with systems that constantly analyze for potential hazards and automatically initiate safety measures, such as an interruption in gas supply. Some units even offer passive safety systems such as a residual heat display.

Cost Savings
Some labs may feel a traditional, low-cost Bunsen burner may seem more than adequate for their particular applications. However, lab managers need to consider the long-term value of safety. Not only do these safety laboratory burners save money on gas, they increase productivity while lowering the likelihood of a very costly accident.