what is a laminar flow hood?

The laminar flow hood:

The laminar flow hood is a cabinet designed to put out a flow of filtered air across the work area/surface, the filtration is designed to remove unwanted contaminated particles moulds fungal spores and other air-born substances and reduce the chance of contamination.

Types of Laminar flow hoods:

There are a few types of laminar flow hoods but the main types are vertical and horizontal the horizontal flow hood works by moving air from the back of the unit and forcing it out through the front filtration system and across the work area.
The vertical laminar flow hood will draw air down from the top and then force it down past the filters onto the work area.
what is a laminar flow hood?
As stated above the Laminar flow hood is a device that forces clean filtered air in one specific direction and speed across the work surface to reduce contamination of your project.

small laminar flow hood:

These units can be all different sizes depending on your requirements small laminar flow hoods will mainly depend on how much airflow and size of filter to the affected work area.

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HEPA filter laminar flow hood:

What is a HEPA filter?:

HEPA is a high-efficiency particulate air filter that has been constructed in a way to be able to allow air to pass through it but reduce very small particles at the same time, this is achieved by thousands of very fine fibres being constructed into a matt.

laminar flow hood mushroom

Laminar flow hood mushroom cultivation

This is probably one of the pieces of equipment that will be very handy at reducing cross-contamination within your mushroom farm lab, the last thing you will be wanting is for your AGAR plate with your prized lion mane mushroom strain being cross-contaminated by some common Fungus. Mushroom laminar flow hood may reduce the chances of this or even prevent it altogether.

What is AGAR

AGAR is best described as a substance that sets like a jelly it’s usually made from an algae Gelidium and Gracilaria it’s used in a lot of food products and is very useful for growing cultures on especially mycelium for mushrooms

Laminar flow hood for sale

Laminar flow hoods can be purchased from a wide variety of places including lab supplies and even amazon it all depends on the size and budget you have to spend you could pay a lot less for a used one if you are willing to go that way. On average you will be paying anything from a couple of hundred to a few thousand. As I said it all depends on what size you require.

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laminar flow hood DIY

Ok, so it seems quite possible to build a laminar flow hood as there is plenty of equipment available to achieve this. After all, it’s basically a box with a built-in fan and filter as long as you can keep a substantial filtered airflow across the work surface there should be no problem in constructing one of these. I did a little research and found a few fan units with built-in switch and plug so electrical work would be no more than just plugging it in and these can be purchased for less than a 100, the HEPA filter can be purchased for as little as 20 for a small unit and a lot more for larger units.
I can build the box for less than 30 so at a push, I could probably build a reasonable unit for around 150 or less. This unit would probably be plenty good enough to get you up and running and allow you to build up your business to where you can buy a professional unit.

laminar flow hood vs biosafety cabinet

Ok so looking at the LFH it is not a biological safety cabinet like the biosafety cabinet this cabinet is designed to create a unidirectional flow across the work surface in parallel streams.
And keep the potential problem away from the worker. A laminar flow hood works by pushing clean filtered air across the work surface and does not protect the worker. They do both use HEPA filters to remove air-born particles.

how long should a laminar flow hood be turned on

In a Lab, this would probably be on all the time but if this is not possible the 15 to 30 minutes before commencing work and clean prior to starting.

DIY flow hood

Check out these fan units here Air flow up to 600 CFM using only averaging 1.2 amps at its top setting 138W efficient motor

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