I. Main Applications of Incubators
Biological Cell and Microbial Cultivation (Most Common in Laboratories)
Microbial culture: Activation, amplification and preservation of strains such as bacteria, fungi and yeast, as well as colony counting for water quality testing, food microbiological inspection, pharmaceutical sterility testing and environmental monitoring.
Cell culture: CO₂ incubators are applied to cultivate mammalian cells, tumor cells and stem cells for pharmacological experiments, vaccine development, genetic engineering and cytotoxicity tests.
Strain preservation: Low-temperature incubators are used for long-term storage of standard strains and engineered bacteria.
Pharmaceutical Industry
Drug stability tests, sterility inspection and microbial limit tests;
Sterilization verification for medical devices and constant-temperature incubation of culture media.
Food and Agricultural Product Inspection
Detection of total bacterial count, coliform and pathogenic bacteria in food;
Seed germination tests, fruit and vegetable fresh-keeping research and grain mildew experiments.
Agriculture, Forestry and Animal Husbandry
Plant tissue culture for seedling breeding;
Isolation and cultivation of pathogenic microorganisms for animal epidemic diseases as well as veterinary drug efficacy tests.
Clinical Medicine
Pathogenic bacteria culture of clinical body fluid, sputum and blood samples for drug susceptibility tests and disease etiological diagnosis;
Microbial identification in clinical laboratory departments.
Other Applications
Enrichment culture of microorganisms in environmental water and soil samples;
Constant-temperature static reactions for materials aging tests and chemical samples.
II. Advantages of Different Types of Incubators
1. Constant-Temperature Incubator (Common Electric Heating Incubator)
Simple structure, low failure rate, affordable price and low operation & maintenance cost.
Stable temperature control with a common range from 5℃ above ambient temperature to 65℃, meeting most microbial cultivation requirements.
Internal hot air circulation ensures even temperature distribution inside the chamber for consistent cultivation results of samples.
Multiple volume options from small bench-top to large vertical models for flexible placement.
Easy operation with only temperature setting required, user-friendly for new operators.
2. CO₂ Incubator (Dedicated for Cell Culture)
Precisely controls CO₂ concentration (normally 0~20%) to stabilize the pH value of culture medium, creating an ideal growth environment for animal cells.
Optional high-temperature moist heat sterilization and UV disinfection greatly reduce the risk of cross-contamination among cells.
Built-in humidity control system prevents evaporation and drying of culture medium to support long-term stable cell culture.
Closed-loop control of temperature, gas and humidity ensures high repeatability of experiments.
3. Biochemical Incubator (Cooling-Type Low-Temperature Incubator)
Equipped with both heating and cooling functions, featuring a wide temperature range of 0~60℃, suitable for low-temperature strain preservation, seed germination and BOD testing.
Ideal for long-term low-temperature incubation experiments such as the cultivation of mould and lactic acid bacteria.
Constant temperature and humidity environment simulates natural conditions, widely used in agriculture, forestry and environmental testing fields.
4. Shaking Incubator (Incubator Shaker)
Performs constant-temperature cultivation with reciprocating or rotary shaking simultaneously to enable sufficient contact between strains and culture medium, greatly accelerating strain amplification.
Suitable for large-scale amplification of engineered bacteria and liquid strains to shorten the cultivation cycle effectively.
Adjustable rotating speed and temperature support batch processing of multiple groups of samples and high efficiency of parallel experiments.