Panasonic’s H2O2 System Completes CO2 Incubator Decontamination in Less than 3 Hours

Panasonic’s unique hydrogen peroxide vapour decontamination option provides complete decontamination while limiting incubator downtime to less than three hours – an industry first. The automated H2O2 cycle protects user safety and can be validated, if desired, ensuring compliance with the highest cGMP, GLP and GRP standards.

Available with Panasonic’s MCO-19AIC CO2 and MCO-19M multi-gas incubators, the H2O2 system enables full decontamination and incubator cleaning to be completed in less than a morning, achieving significant time savings compared with standard heat decontamination methods. As this is a low temperature process there is no heat stress on electrical components and zero impact on adjacent equipment and the surrounding environment.

This easy-to-use high-speed vaporised H2O2 process provides total chamber decontamination. All interior components and the CO2 sampling loop are decontaminated in situ, bypassing the need for a separate autoclave cycle. Following a 7-minute H2O2 vaporisation, the UV lamp switches on for 90 minutes, reducing the H2O2 to water vapour and oxygen. The incubator’s interior fan circulates air throughout the chamber during the entire cycle. As the H2O2 system is fully verified as a method of decontamination it is especially suitable for use in highly demanding pharmaceutical and biotechnology applications, such as monoclonal antibody production.

User safety is given high priority, with the incubator automatically locked during the decontamination cycle. Should a power failure occur, the H2O2 breakdown process is started from the beginning, eliminating any possible hazard. In case of a UV lamp failure, the incubator remains automatically locked to allow for natural breakdown of the H2O2.

The H2O2 incubator decontamination system complements Panasonic’s patented SafeCell UV treatment of interior airflow and exclusive InCu saFe copper-enriched stainless steel interior incubator surfaces. These continuous Active Background Contamination Control features give constant germicidal protection while cell culture protocols are in process.