A stable cold room environment is essential for the safe storage of many types of products. Even slight fluctuations in temperature or humidity can compromise product integrity, making precise cold room design a critical factor in maintaining quality.
Video Credit: Environmental Specialties
Environmental Specialties brings extensive expertise in designing and installing cold rooms with single-point or variable set-point temperature control, excellent volumetric uniformity, and advanced dehumidification systems to maintain precise relative humidity (RH).
Our cold rooms support a wide range of storage applications across multiple industries, including:
- Vaccines and drug products
- Chromatography and analytical separations
- Plasma and blood products
- Bulk raw material and finished product
- Media, chemical, and reagent holding
- Depressed temperature stability and shelf-life studies
- Hazardous material
Versatile cold room design
Designed for everything from laboratory use to warehouse storage, Environmental Specialties' cold rooms combine maximum flexibility with precise reliability. The company offers the latest humidity and temperature control technology, redundancy features, and more.
Sizes and capabilities
Sizes
- From modest step-in units to high-bay warehouse storage areas.
Capabilities:
- Uniform temperatures between +2 °C and +8 °C.
- Standard setpoint of +5 °C.
- Standard volumetric temperature uniformity (horizontal and vertical) of +/-3 °C with design capability as low as +/-1 °C.
- Single point or variable set-point temperature control accuracy down to +/-0.1 °C.
- Dehumidification is available to manage the maximum RH set-point and mitigate mold formation.
- N+N (2N) 100% mechanical redundancy systems with automatic switchover.
- Automatic defrosting when necessary.
- Accessories include outlets, security features, shelving, pass-throughs, windows, and more.
- Rooms built with insulated metal structure.
- Personnel and vehicle door options are available.
- Design classifications available, including Class I Division 2 and ISO 5-8.
- Compliance with the Food and Drug Administration Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21 Section 11.
- Standard controls can be integrated to building management and building automation systems.
Construction and features
Architectural features
- Modular metal-skinned panels with urethane insulation have “cam-locking” tongue-and-groove construction, as well as vinyl gasketed seams to ensure moisture- and vapor-tight seals.
- Self-supporting or building-supported roof panel suspension.
- Multiple insulated panel finishes, including stainless steel, embossed white galvanized steel, Kynar, and uPVC.
- Standard panel thickness of four inches.
- Floor panel (if applicable):
- Standard floor load rating is 600 pounds per square foot, with a greater rating if necessary.
- Stainless steel, galvanized steel, or diamond plate finishes.
- Slab on grade construction requires thermal break.
- Entrance types
- Personnel doors.
- Slider, roll-up, powered, and manual vehicle doors.
- Factory Mutual (FM) 4880 fire rating available.
Electrical Features
- Lighting
- Vapor-proof LED fixtures.
- Standard, motion-detected, or zoned lighting controls.
- Controls
- Proportional–integral–derivative (PID) or programmable logic controller (PLC).
- Optional redundancy.
Standard offerings
Warranty
- Minimum one-year labor and materials with variable extended warranty available.
Site-specific safety plan
Start-up field performance testing
- Validation is available as an additional service, including installation qualification (IQ), operational qualification (OQ), and performance qualification (PQ).
- 24-hour duration.
- Monitoring points ranging from 16 to 24 unloaded.
Turnover documentation
- Owner’s instructions
- Controls manual
- Equipment manual
- Warranty statements
- Field testing data
- Master manual (engineering/design submittal)
- Recommended spare parts
- Major equipment datasheets
- As-built drawings and schematics
Special Options
The cold rooms can be designed to satisfy a range of extremely specific needs, such as:
- Explosion-safe Class 1 Division 2
- Insect rearing
- Outdoor Construction
- Conditioned anteroom/airlock
- Customer and project-specific customizations
- ISO 5, Grade A or B
- ISO 6
- ISO 7, Grade B or C
- ISO 8, Grade C or D