title: Design and implementation of a large-scale liquid nitrogen archive.
abstract: UK Biobank required a cryogenic facility to store, in vapour phase, a minimum of 5 000 000 1.2 ml capacity micro-tubes held in racks of 96 tubes below -180 degrees C for a 20 year period. The archive would be housed in a 900 m(2) industrial unit remote from the main laboratory area that would be generally unmanned and would require a complete cryogenic infrastructure. A commercial supplier was commissioned to provide a complete system including design, project management, supply and installation of all the cryogenic storage requirement including bulk tank, super insulated vacuum lines, Taylor Wharton LABS80K high capacity long-term vapour phase storage vessels with inventory control systems and all the local and remote software. The large-scale storage vessels were selected to give a high storage density, temperature stability and storage in vapour phase.
authors.affiliation: Lab Mode Ltd. mark.fagan@labmode.co.uk
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fagan
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ball
mesh_terms: D018070:Biological Specimen Banks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D001769:Blood; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004777:Environment; D004867:Equipment Design; D005615:Freezing; D006801:Humans; D009584:Nitrogen; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods; D006113:United Kingdom; D014556:Urine
chemical_list: D009584:Nitrogen