A recently completed University of Worcester facility, designed for testing of pollen and other airborne allergens, can reportedly replicate “any environment on the planet – from the Sahara Desert to the Arctic”.
The sealed facility can “drop the temperature to 20 degrees below freezing point, increase humidity levels to tropical levels, or remove oxygen to replicate different altitudes”. Part of the University’s National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit (NPARU), the Charles Darwin building was built by the Leadbitter Group, working with specialist equipment supplier Design Environmental, and Cleanroom Design and Construction (CDC), design and build contractor for the containment laboratories. Alongside the climatic test centre, it provides laboratories, teaching and administration facilities, and cleanrooms. CDC installed two category II containment laboratories, built to ISO 14644 class 7 standard, incorporating laboratory furniture, laminar flow and fume cupboards, and microbiological safety cabinets. Mark Hookins, Leadbitter project manager, said: “This was an extremely technical build. University staff were involved in all aspects of the design and layout. We also took the client’s representative along to the factory developing the environmental test chamber.” Keith Barber of Design Environmental added. “The University wanted an extremely versatile, and quite unusual, piece of equipment. It needed to control the temperature by refrigeration, and via electrical heating for higher temperatures, while simultaneously being able to inject humidity to replicate rainforest environments. We also needed to be able to inject or deplete the oxygen content. We built the equipment in our factory, and then had to take it apart, and re-assemble it, on site.”
