Laboratory safety means more than wearing gloves and goggles. If staff are leaving the lab smelling like chemicals, they may be inhaling harmful vapors throughout the day—without knowing it.
This article explores the overlooked risks of uncontrolled lab emissions and offers practical solutions to improve air quality, protect your team, and maintain product integrity.
Cross-Contamination in Fragrance Labs
In the flavor and fragrance industry, nuisance odors don’t just affect comfort—they disrupt a chemist’s ability to distinguish between scent profiles.
This cross-contamination makes it harder to refine products accurately. When success depends on scent sensitivity, even low-level emissions can impact quality and consistency.
Left unaddressed, this issue can compromise product integrity, employee health, and your bottom line.
A lab manager’s first responsibility, above all else, is to guarantee the safety of their personnel from dangerous emissions. They need to know the difference between what chemical concentration signifies a health hazard and which odors are affecting their personnel’s comfort level. If staff regularly leave the lab smelling like chemicals, your emissions are escaping—and your safety systems may be failing. It is a sure sign that emissions in your lab have not been contained. It also suggests that your lab is in need of a robust air filtration system.
What Air Filtration Equipment Should You Consider?
Every time chemicals are opened, mixed, transferred, or stored, airborne emissions are released into the lab. These emissions accumulate throughout the day, especially in high-use spaces.
That’s why continuous air filtration is critical—from the moment chemicals arrive to the final cleanup. Your filtration solution must actively capture vapors where they’re generated and protect staff in real time.
Consider a solution that is easy to set up and use. A laboratory air filtration system that can be installed in areas of heavy concentration or where odors intrude on environmental ambience and human comfort.
Ideally, such a system would have audio/visual communication for any issues detected, a powerful, but quiet means of filtering and exchanging the air while trapping and containing molecules (the building blocks of the final compound and/or chemical) in a sustainable manner. This system will take air (and everything at the molecular level) up vertically, capture the emissions effectively, and release clean air horizontally, while eliminating turbulence in the laboratory and its’ dead air zones.
Why Plug-and-Play Air Filtration Systems Are Ideal
Products that are designed to plug and play into an existing system with no HVAC requirement and no impact on a building’s infrastructure are ideal. Typically, the solution is thought to be increased air exchanges from between 4-12 depending on the lab.
Other products ideally suited for lab applications include: ductless filtering chemical storage cabinets for complete adsorption and containment of stored samples and/or hazardous chemicals. A ductless filtering fume hood for working with liquids or powders is also recommended.
Choose a supplier that:
- Has a proven track record in R&D and manufacturing
- Offers safety certifications and detailed documentation
- Provides a written chemical application analysis with your RFQ
This ensures the solution is designed for your exact lab conditions and chemical profile.
Experience the Value of Filtering Ductless Fume Hoods
Get to know the many benefits derived from installing air filtration devices in your lab. The concepts presented in this blog are offered to aid you in providing solutions to maintain a safe and odor free lab environment. Do the research and query your colleagues, to understand the value of purchasing a self-contained air filtration product for your lab. Benefits include:
An odor free facility
- More pleasurable working environment
- Precise area for weighing applications (Powders/Liquids)
- Controlled sample storage
- Safer laboratory without costly HVAC & additional building loads
- Contribution to your sustainability efforts
About Erlab
As the Inventor of the ductless laboratory fume hood and worldwide leader since 1968, Erlab’s passion is to focus on the research and development, design, and manufacturing of cutting-edge toxic gas air filtration in the laboratory. As an industry innovator, Erlab is committed to safety, performance, energy efficiency, and sustainability, and has remained number one in the world for ductless fume hoods.
