Posted on 5/26/2021
Before late 2020, few people outside medical, industrial and academic circles had heard of the ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers. But when Pfizer announced its vaccine would require storage of -70° C, a world clamoring for a way out of the pandemic developed a newfound interest in ultracold storage. But how do these super freezers work? What are the challenges in producing them? Besides vaccine conservation, what are their other applications?
Dusty Tenney, CEO of US-based Stirling Ultracold, which manufactures three sizes of ULT freezers, operating within -20°C to -86°C, for life science and biopharma research, says:
“As recently observed in Forbes, the COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered as the ‘great accelerator’ of technological trends, despite its overwhelmingly tragic impact on global health and econo...