VACUUM CHAMBER

Vacuum Chamber:

vacuum chamber

 

Some engineers at Lucent wanted to cool devices inside a vacuum chamber and they didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. TECA’s been making devices like that for decades. They had a load of 10 to 20 watts generated and wanted -40 °C with about 15 °C to 20 °C water available.

A Custom LHP-800CP / LHP-300CP cascade, controller and power supply were supplied for a reasonable cost in a reasonable time frame.

SAMPLE COOLING IN CLEAN ROOM

Sample Cooling (Clean Room):

Sample Cooling Clean Room Sample Cooling Clean Room

 

A research lab in Europe needed to stabilize the temperature of an acid solution within +-0.5 °C. TECA’s AHP-301CPV Cold/Hot Plate was the ideal solution due to its small footprint, versatile features and programmable temperature controller. The customer offered the following comments:

  • The AHP-301CPV is installed in our big clean room*. Here we fabricate our micro/nano devices for electronic and photonic applications.
  • we have now the possibility to do experiments at controlled temperatures and in a really wide range of temperatures. This allow us to increase the reproducibility of our results, which often are so dependent by Temperature.
  • AHP-301CPV keeps stable the temperature of an acid solution inside a beaker (max 6 or 7cm in diameter and max 10cm in height).
  • The possibility to program the temperature controller it’s really interesting, and it will be worthwhile for future experiments. (The customer is referring to the ability to program ramp & soak profiles)

TECA’s cold/hot plates are not specifically designed for clean room use however the customer determined this product would be suitable given the restrictions in this particular clean room.

COOLING SAMPLES TO -40 °C Research Study

Cooling Samples to -40 °C

Cooling Samples to -40 °C Cooling Samples to -40 °C

 

A university research team utilized TECA’s AHP-1200C31 Cascaded Cold Plate to build a calorimeter for a research paper that was recently published. The researchers aimed to determine the thermal properties of their specimen as part of a study on cement and concrete durability.

Originally the customer used only the AHP-1200CAS base cold plate and was able to reach -15 °C. When he determined that colder temperatures were needed, he added the CCP-31 cascade attachment to reach -40 °C. With a cascade system each cascade stage acts as a heat sink for the stage above it. This allows the top stage to reach colder temperatures.

TECA offers two and three stage cascade systems for reaching temperatures as low as -60 °C (LHP-1200C31).

MEDICAL LABORATORY

Medical Laboratory:

medical laboratory

Some researchers at Johns Hopkins have taken the AHP-1200CPV thermoelectric cold plate (Peltier cold plate) and are cooling protein crystallization in Teflon trays with a solution in them. They’ve used the remote sense feature by drilling a hole in Teflon tray and installing the sensor in there. Using it with internal sensor and the auto-tuning feature they have gotten the control they needed. The secret may have been in how well the Teflon tray is contacting the 2″ X 3″ plate, machined perfectly flat.

Cooling objects with concave bottoms minimizes the contact area and diminishes the cooling effectiveness.

MEDICATION STORAGE

Medication Storage:

medication storage medication storage

 

Keeping medication at optimal storage temperature is very important.

A customized AHP-1200CPV thermoelectric cold plate (Peltier cooling plate) with plate that has grooves with various diameters to accommodate vials of different sizes and lengths was a perfect solution for the customer. Another feature of this custom thermoelectric cooling unit (Peltier cold plate) is tamper proof temperature controller.

MASS SPECTROMETER LABORATORY

Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer Laboratory:

MASS SPECTROMETER LABORATORY MASS SPECTROMETER LABORATORY

 

Stock thermostated sample tray supplied with mass spectrometer holds water samples at above ambient temperature. This leads to evaporation and condensation within the sample vials, and problems of gas transfer through sample needle to mass spectrometer (liquid condensation blocks gas flow through capillary tube).

USF Geology Stable Isotope Laboratory installed a second auto-sampler with a TECA AHP-1200CPV cold plate to keep samples at precisely controlled temperatures to prevent condensation and evaporation of the sample within the vials, and maintains the thermal stability required for isotope ratio mass spectrometry of water samples analyzed by equilibration method.

PHARMACEUTICAL LABORATORY

Pharmaceutical Laboratory:

Keeping drugs cool on the bench

pharmaceutical laboratory

A private biopharmaceutical company formulates drugs that are sensitive to temperature. TECA Model AHP-1200 CPV is their perfect benchtop cooling solution. The customer uses the AHP-1200 CPV Cold Plate in combination with the customer’s own aluminum blocks to keep solutions at 0C during filtration and vial filling operations.

The customer reports, “We have been very satisfied”. This customer provided photo is a wonderful example of the versatility of TECA’s line of Laboratory Cold/Hot Plates. The plate surfaces are appropriately sized to accept microtiter plates and other lab accessories. The temperature can be read from either the plate surface or anywhere a remote sensor can be placed, via the Remote Sensibility™ feature.

LABORATORY APPLICATION

Laboratory Application:

laboratory application laboratory application

 

In March our customer said: “We are most likely going to soon order 1 of the AHP-301CPV.”

First though, can you please provide a quote on the manufacture of a top plate? We would like to fit:

  • 2 x 500 mL Schott bottles (the one I measured was 86mm diameter)
  • 2 x 250 mL Schott bottles (the one I measured was 68mm diameter)
  • 2 x 50 mL Schott bottles (the one I measured was 46mm diameter)

I’d guess that Schott do not make their bottles to too tight specifications, so we would need to allow some room for tolerances. What do you think? These could be arranged in any way that fit best and that minimized any top plate overhang over the cold plate beneath. We can foresee out-growing the 50 mL bottles, so ideally would like the ‘walls’ surrounding the 50 mL wells to be thick enough to later be drilled out so that the wells can accommodate 100 mL Schott bottles (the one I measured was 56mm diameter). The height of the top plate (i.e. depth of the wells) only need be about 70 mm. For the current application, we only need to chill to about 5 deg °C. Does the range we are interested in affect anything?

In May we shipped the custom “Beaker Block: and AHP-301CPV.

INDUSTRIAL MATERIAL

Industrial Material:

industrial material

In this example of an AHP-1200CP application a box surrounds the cold plate area. Materials are set directly upon the cold plate and the lid is closed. The material is cooled and temperature controlled without the large air cooling refrigerator.

HAIR REPLACEMENT PROCEDURE

 Hair Transplant Procedure, Follicular Unit Transplant/Extraction (FUT/FUE):

hair transplant procedure

A group of physicians pioneered a hair replacement procedure using TECA’s AHP-1200CPV Cold/Hot Plate. The AHP-1200CPV is a Peltier cold plate. In the photo provided by TECA’s customer, the cold plate keeps hair transplant grafts cool in a solution during the patient’s procedure. The convenience of the AHP-1200CPV cold plate’s built-in temperature controller allows the technician to easily program it to maintain the desired set point.

The AHP-1200CPV is capable of reaching temperatures as low as -15 °C. In the photos here, the set point is programmed to 5 °C. The AHP-1200CPV has an integral universal power supply, so it can be used with any input voltage range from 100 to 240 VAC.

 

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