air vs water jacket incubators - (Jul/29/2010 )

Dear all
what is the difference between air-jacketed and water-jacketed CO2 incubators? since we are planning to purchase one. dose it make a big difference between both types?
thanks

Waterjacketed incubators have a large thermal mass, so don't cool down as much when opening the door and during power failures. Having said that, most non-water jacketed CO₂ incubators have a big mass of metal around them which keeps them warm enough.

The main issue you will find with water is that you need to fill them with sterile distilled water so as to not corrode the jacket and to prevent bacterial/fungal growth. If they do become contaminated, it is very hard to clean out the jacket and theyt become a source of cell culture contamination.

many thanks bob1!

Having purchased both types, I can definitely say that the air-jacketed incubator does tend to coincide with increased evaporation.
The air-jacketed incubator, at least the one that we are currently using, works well with our larger-volume stocks. We routinely use our water-jacketed incubator to house our TC plates, e.g. our 96- or 6-well TC plates.

But, Bob1 is 100% correct in that the water in the water-jacketed incubator is a wonderful source of contamination. But, if maintained regularly, hopefully you wouldn't find it a problem.

Hope that helps!

labrat612 on Mon Aug 9 18:50:11 2010 said:

does this means that for our routine work on TC plates (10-cm, 3-cm, 6-well)the air jacketed incubator will increase the evaporation of culture media more than the water jacketed type?

well, I will say that the increased evaporation in our 6-well, 96-well dishes was observed in the air jacketed incubator that we have.
Whether that is true for all types, I can't say. But it would be something to keep in mind.

yobou on Thu Jul 29 16:14:50 2010 said:

In the old days water jacketed CO2 Incubators were mainly used to help with summer increases in ambient temperatures. Tissue culture rooms in those days were not air conditioned and CO2 Incubators would be badly affected i.e. 37oC could not be maintained and it was not unheard of that the incubator temperatures could rise to 38/39 degrees. The LEEC incubator we had was water jacketed and could be hooked up to a water pump that would pump cool water through the water jacket of the Incubator.
Modern CO2 Incubators seem to be more stable in high temperatures....also alot of TC rooms have controlled air flow or air conditioning. We have around 200 CO2 Incubators in our 2 Institutes....NONE of them are water jacketed.
The point has been well made that these jackets are easily contaminated and will rust over time. They are also a big pain to move/relocate to other areas as they are VERY HEAVY. We regularly have to move stacked Incubators.... draining them of water would be a big pain.


We have not observed any problem with evaporation from 6/12/24/48/96 well plates as these Incubators are humidified. I would suggest that the ratio of Water jacketed/Non-water jacketed is 10%/90% in the UK market place. Maybe someone from the manufacturers could comment if they had these figures.
We regularly test new Incubators and in the last 25 years have never been given a water jacketed incubator.....they are old fashioned.....like the perception of fans in Incubators .....and UV in Safety cabinets.

Kindest regards

Uncle Rhombus.