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What is a CO2-resistant shaker?

Lab Academy

This article was published first in "Inside Cell Culture" , the monthly newsletter for cell culture professionals. Find more interesting articles about CO2 incubators on our page "FAQs and material on CO2 incubators" .

A CO2-resistant shaker is used to agitate a small number of shake flasks with mammalian cells in suspension culture inside a CO2 incubator. These cultures are, for example used for the expression of recombinant proteins or the production of bioreactor starter-cultures (inoculum). For higher throughput, CO2 incubators with an integrated shaker are used.

The term “CO2-resistant shaker” itself that is often used, also by manufacturers, is clearly misleading as it doesn´t address the main challenge these devices are facing and overcoming inside a CO2 incubator. The elevated CO2-concentration itself inside the incubator chamber is not the main challenge. However, together with the high relative humidity (usually ~95%) CO2-resistant shakers face a slightly acidic atmosphere that is highly corrosive. In addition, this humid atmosphere can lead to electronic malfunctions and spills of culture medium entering the device may form a contamination nucleus that is hard to detect and remove. Therefore, in contrast to standard open-air shakers, a CO2 resistant shaker comes with design specialized for the use inside a CO2 incubator.

Features and limitations of a typical CO2 resistant shaker:

  • Low heat dissipation to avoid interference with the temperature control of the CO2 incubator
  • Sealed electronics and mechanical parts to avoid malfunctions, corrosion, and contamination inside
  • Corrosion-resistant exterior made of stainless steel or specialized plastics like Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) that can also be disinfected
  • Platform capacity and drive design limited to shake a few 1L flasks (low throughput applications)
  • Some devices are limited to 200 rpm and may therefore not be suitable for protocols with higher rpm of plates and tubes
  • Limited use with parallel cultivation of vibration-sensitive adherent cells like stem cells or primary cells due to transfer of vibrations

Read more about the proper selection of a CO2 resistant orbital shaker in our White Paper .