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+ Medical equipment
+ Medicine
+ Carbon dioxide
+ Incubators
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Marco Pereira

Is medical grade CO2 essential for an incubator?

Alexander Mathey  Follow

We have used 'food grade' CO2 now from a local supplier for the past year and all cells are happy and healthy with that.  Besides, there's always a small filter inline from the CO2 tank to the incubator.  In the end, I guess it's a question of by-products from the manufacture of CO2 gas, but food grade must be nontoxic for humans and seems to work well for cells...and is easy to obtain (and less expensive).  After researching this in depth locally, we found that the ONLY difference was a more detailed gas analysis from the supplier (but they don't alter the original gas in any way as it comes from the whole saler).  I suspect that many labs are being billed for 'medical grade' gas and are receiving standard food grade CO2.  I have not yet found a commercial supplier who can actually document that 'medical grade' CO2 is made any differently nor filtered in any special way as compared to food grade.  Thanks for posting the links in your answer above!

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Craig Fairhurst  Follow

Thank you for your reply. Our CO2 incubator is used in tissue culture research however and perhaps a commercial CO2 gas would be sufficient rather than medical grade, in this particular case. What do you think?


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Andras Ivan  Follow

Absolutely it has to be medical grade,to ensure the safety and reliability of this vital piece of critical care unit.Further the hospital accredits specifies a periodical maintenance and QA of the grade of the CO2 incubators to ensure patient safety.


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Brainfarction  Follow

You may also check the link below from ThermoFisher:

Back to Basics: Proper Care and Maintenance for Your Cell Culture Incubator
(p.2)

https://tools.thermofisher.com/content/sfs/brochures/TNCO2CAREFEED-EN.pdf



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Cynthia Billops  Follow
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Betsy Poole  Follow

We're trying to decide which CO2 is the best for our incubator too. I've talked to researchers at a nearby medical school, and it appears they use industrial grade. An industry contact says he uses medical grade. It appears there is no "right" answer. But I did find a very good treatment of this debate after a quick Internet search. I've added the link to this posting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/2d9gaf/cell_culture_and_co2/

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