In March 2021, Koen Van Canneyt - our Expert Cleanrooms & Laboratories - was one of the key players at the Egnaton Forum on laboratories. He explained the Virtual Lab Tour in the newly built labs O&N1bis and O&N5 of the KU Leuven and participated in an international panel on energy reduction in lab buildings.
Egnaton is the European association for sustainable laboratories. The originally German organization groups about 100 members, mainly universities, architectural and design firms, and industrial experts. Egnaton is committed to lower lifecycle costs and extended laboratory life, and also strives for greater safety, a positive impact on the health of users and the environment, and greatly reducing environmental impacts. Ingenium is active in working groups around two key areas within the sustainable vision of laboratories: energy efficiency and ventilation.
On March 8, 2021, Forum guests were given an online tour of KU Leuven's 10,000 m² newly built laboratories. The incubator principle was first explained conceptually by the building owner-end user and further developed by the various architects. Ingenium then elaborated on the design of the mainly biotech labs. The focus was mainly on how the demand for maximum flexibility on the part of the client during the concept, design and implementation phases was put into practice. Project engineers from KU Leuven finally compared those design values with the final design plans.
March 22 featured the online Egnaton Panel Discussion on "Energy supply in labs. Because the numerous equipment there emits a lot of heat, Koen Van Canneyt zoomed in on the cooling strategy of analytical labs. He studied several cases. In addition to the electricity consumption for the fans, the required heating and cooling capacities were calculated in each case. By determining the optimal balance between free cooling and working with recirculation (enthalpy control) on hot days, no less than 50 percent can be saved on energy consumption compared to conventional solutions.
For more info on sustainable labs, contact Jan Robert at 050 40 45 30 or jan.robert@ingenium.be.
