While choosing equipments for the lab, people often get started with a long list of must have lab equipments. This list contains many names, and if you are not much accustomed with the names, you may easily get confused. While ordering equipments, you must know which one is for what purpose. This helps in proper understanding of what exactly you would require in lab as per your job and work type. Equipments which often creates confusion for the amateur ear are stainless steel glove boxes and cleanroom workbenches. What are they for, and are they supposed to suffice the need of another, and how they are similar and different, are some questions people often ask while grabbing knowledge about lab equipments initially. Hence, here is a clean guide to understand differences in them.
What are workbenches for?
Workbenches, as the name suggests are for working with a bench and a table attached together. They provide a place to sit or stand, and work on an elevated platform supported by sturdy built. Workbenches are for giving you a work area, which is good enough to keep objects, instruments and items of work on the platform, and work with those in the laboratory. In short it’s a neat and comfortable arrangement to work standing or seated on a table, which is strong and stable, and can be purged with sanitizers and maintained clean.
What are stainless steel glove boxes for?
Stain steel glove boxes are boxes give you a protected enclosed area with two gloves giving entry to your hands inside the box to hold objects that are inside for working. This gives you a protected environment to work. The protected environment may have different temperature, pressure, or humidity than that of the outer atmosphere. That’s why sensitive experiments and work which are to be done in controlled settings are done inside the secure enclosure of a glove box, as the gloves protruding inside are filled by hands of the person working from outside the box. The transparent walls of the box allow for seeing what is going on inside while working manually without chances of disturbance to internal settings.
Differences between the two
The major differences between stainless steel glove boxes and cleanroom workbenches are:
- Workbenches offer open working space while glove boxes give an enclosed working space totally separated from outer atmosphere.
- Workbenches give you a place to work, where you can keep all needed items, store items in drawers and shelves, and work conveniently in any type of project allowed there. But glove boxes give you a small area and protected environment to work with sensitive items which needs controlled configured settings for working.
- You can shift a small or portable glove box over a workbench, but cannot do vice versa.
- Workbenches allow a broad space to work seated or standing, while glove boxes can be used standing or seated depending on your convenience.
- Workbenches can be used in versatile ways, while glove boxes have a typical application.
