Fabrication of Energy Efficient Improvised Incubator

Abstract

Aims: The paper presents the design, working and testing of an energy efficient improvised incubator, a general purpose heating and cooling equipment designed to maintain a constant temperature in the range of 5ºC to 50ºC. Study Design: Determination of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), requires maintaining the water sample at 20ºC continuously for 5 days, in an incubator resulting in high cost and extensive use of energy. Energy efficient incubators are hence the need of the industrial world. An improvised incubator is designed by scaling down the conventional incubators and incorporating voltage regulator, overload protection unit and UPS system for continuous operation during power failure. Conclusion: The testing results indicate that the developed prototype takes only 1/6th of the time and 1/10th of energy as compared to conventional incubators. Place of Study: The design and fabrication of the improvised incubator was conceptualized at Department of Chemistry and Department of Electrical Engineering J.N.V University, Jodhpur and fabrication was done at M/s Surana Scientifics, Jodhpur under the Instrument Development Program of DST, New Delhi.