Crush Your Lab's Fumes
Why is your lab smelly?
Formalin
Every jar opened at accessioning, every specimen decanted, every cut into fixed tissue puts formaldehyde vapor into the room. The odor threshold sits well below the OSHA limit, so staff smell it long before a monitoring badge flags anything.
Xylene
Deparaffinization racks, open stainer reagent wells, coverslipper mounting media, processor reagent rotations. Xylene evaporates fast and gets exposed to room air at a dozen points spread across the lab. That sweet solvent smell is the signature histology odor, and no single hood is positioned to catch all of it.
Small Space
The same volume of vapor in a 400 square foot lab hits a much higher concentration than in a 2,000 square foot lab. Small labs also pack instruments close together, so multiple emission points share one pocket of air.
Poor Ventilation
Most histology labs are in converted space with HVAC that was never designed for solvent load. Air gets recirculated instead of exchanged, so fumes accumulate through the shift and are still there the next morning. This is the one that usually feels unsolvable, because the fix is normally ductwork and construction.
Why you should care
The smell is telling you something specific
Formaldehyde has an odor threshold of roughly 0.5 to 1 ppm. OSHA's action level for formaldehyde is 0.5 ppm and the permissible exposure limit is 0.75 ppm. Those numbers overlap. Most lab chemicals give you a wide warning margin, xylene being detectable around 1 ppm against a limit of 100 ppm. Formalin gives you almost none. If your room smells like formalin rather than just like a lab, the concentration is already in the range the regulation was written for.Keep in mind you have gone nose-blind to your own lab. Everyone who works in histology does. Ask a courier, a rep, or a new hire on their first morning what they smell, and treat their answer as your real baseline.
What "action level" actually means
Passing your monitoring is not the same as clean air
Nothing in your lab is treating the room air
The fix you were quoted is not the only one
Clean Air, Made Simple
REMOVE FUMES 10X
The Rankin Can-Filter System draws fumes through 100lbs of carbon using a powerful blower, continuously absorbing them. Reduce your fume exposure by 10X.
BIG POWER, SMALL FOOTPRINT
The Rankin Can-Filter System pulls up to 1,200 CFM, giving you an air change every 2 minutes (per 500 SF), and only takes up 16" of floor space.
Plug-N-Play
The Rankin Can-Filter System is plug-n-play. No facility re-work or HVAC construction is required.
Quiet & Powerful
The Rankin Can-Filter System gives you industrial-strength power, but is no louder than a standard fume hood. Only 68 decibels at max power.
FAQs
Does this replace my fume hood?
No, and you should not treat it as a substitute. Your downdraft station and fume hood are local exhaust, designed to capture vapor at the source before it reaches the person standing there. The Can Filter treats the air in the rest of the room, which is the part nothing else in your lab is handling. The two do different jobs and you want both.
Will this bring my lab into OSHA compliance?
Compliance is determined by personal exposure monitoring, not by equipment. What the Can Filter does is lower the background concentration in the room, which is one of the inputs to that measurement. If you are currently over the action level or the PEL, you need to identify the source and address it directly, and you should be monitoring either way. Anyone who tells you a plug-in unit makes you compliant is selling you something they cannot deliver.
How does it actually remove formalin and xylene?
Air is pulled through the wall of the canister and passes through a granular activated carbon bed roughly two and a half inches thick before exiting through the top. Carbon adsorbs organic vapor onto the internal pore surface of each granule. Formaldehyde, xylene, and alcohol are all vapors, so all three are the carbon's job. The unit moves 1,200 CFM, which turns over a typical histology lab many times per hour, and removal builds across repeated passes rather than happening all at once in a single pass.
Do I need ductwork, an electrician, or a facilities work order?
None of the three. The unit plugs into a standard 110v outlet, and recirculates room air. There is nothing to vent outside, no roof penetration, no engineering drawing, and no bench downtime. That is the whole reason it exists, because most labs that need room-air control cannot get a ducted retrofit approved or physically installed, especially in a leased suite.
What is the pre-filter and do I have to replace it?
The pre-filter is the fabric sleeve wrapped around the outside of the canister. It catches solid particles before they reach the carbon. It removes no vapor on its own, and its only purpose is to keep the carbon working. Dust and lint coat carbon granules and block the pores long before the carbon is chemically spent. The sleeve comes with every new carbon filter replacement, and can be purchased separately.
How long does the carbon last?
It depends on how much vapor the room is producing, how many hours the unit runs, and how well the pre-filter is maintained. A lab running a processor and stainer daily in a small room will load carbon faster than a low-volume lab. The practical indicator is the smell coming back. Carbon does not fail suddenly, it saturates gradually, so a return of odor at the same run hours means the bed is spent. It is recommended to replace your filter every 3-6 months.
Where should I put it?
Put it where the air is worst and where nothing else is capturing, which in most labs is the grossing area where heavy amounts of formalin are being exposed. Against a wall is safest, with the included wall mount kit, and gives you access to an electrical outlet. Give it clearance so it can draw from all sides. If your grossing bench already has working downdraft, that is not where the unit earns its keep. Walk the room during a normal shift and note where the smell is strongest, then start there.
Is it loud enough to be a problem at the bench?
It is a blower moving real air, so it is audible. Most labs run it continuously and stop noticing it within a day, the same way they stop noticing the processor. If your lab is small enough that noise is a concern, position it away from the microtome and dictation stations. We measure up to 68 dB at a max setting, which is not louder than a standard fume hood.
We already passed our badge monitoring. Why would we need this?
Passing means you are compliant, and that is worth having. It does not mean the air is clean. A badge reports one person's average across a full shift against a 0.5 ppm line. NIOSH, the federal research agency that studies workplace hazards, recommends staying under 0.016 ppm, roughly thirty times lower. A lab can pass cleanly and still smell, and the smell is what your staff carries home and what your next hire notices on the tour.
What size lab does this handle?
The general rule of thumb is one unit per 500 square feet of space. The unit moves up to 1,200 CFM. In a room with a nine foot ceiling, that works out to roughly 26 air changes per hour in a 300 square foot lab, 16 in a 500 square foot lab, and 10 in an 800 square foot lab. For reference, most general lab ventilation guidance targets 6 to 12 air changes per hour, and typical histology labs fall well short of that on building HVAC alone. Larger rooms, or rooms with a processor and stainer running at opposite ends, do better with two units placed at separate sources than with one unit in the middle.
Can I install this myself?
Yes! Installation is clearly laid out in the instructions in the packaging. Installation should take about 10 minutes. Tip: It helps if you have 2 people to move the carbon filter which weighs 100 lbs. Once tipped up, it moves quite easily.
Does this affect the humidity?
No. The unit recirculates room air, so there is no drain, no condensate, and no exchange with outside air. Carbon does adsorb some water vapor, but only until it reaches equilibrium with the room, after which it neither adds nor removes moisture. The blower does put its motor heat into the room, which can nudge relative humidity down a couple of points, but the actual moisture content of the air does not change.Tip: It helps if you have 2 people to move the carbon filter which weighs 100 lbs. Once tipped up, it moves quite easily.
How do I dispose of the filter?
The same way you already dispose of used activated carbon from other lab equipment. If your facility has an established procedure for spent carbon, apply it here.Two points worth understanding. Rankin does not supply an SDS for the carbon media, because an SDS covers unused raw material. Once carbon has been in service, what matters is not the carbon itself but the substances it adsorbed during use, and that is what any waste characterization has to be based on.Second, disposal determination belongs to you as the waste generator. You classify the waste, comply with applicable local, state, and federal regulations, follow your internal policies, and coordinate with a third-party disposal provider if one is required. Rankin does not classify, transport, or dispose of waste, and does not issue disposal certifications or regulatory determinations. Your own regulatory requirements and facility policies govern regardless of anything stated here.Tip: It helps if you have 2 people to move the carbon filter which weighs 100 lbs. Once tipped up, it moves quite easily.
Still have questions?
Talk to a representative about how the Can-Filter System can provide you with clean air.