Ultraclean Metal-free Lab

Columbia University | New York

Columbia University needed a new ultraclean laboratory for Professor Halliday, the founding dean and director of the Columbia Climate School. Since the specific acids used in his team’s research will corrode any metal in close proximity and contaminate the high precision metal isotope research being conducted, the laboratory needed to be metal-free.

Columbia University chose PROTECS to be the construction manager for this specialized laboratory constructed in the Gary Comer Geochemistry building of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The project created two rooms with HEPA filtered vertical laminar flow workstations, new plastic benches, integral hot plates and lab sinks. In addition, the project required a gowning room, a circulation corridor with storage, a clean balance room and the renovation of an existing lab in room 122. The lab renovation was needed to provide space for additional equipment which involved the demolition of an existing sample room, removal of bench work and the lab sink, demo of the existing supplemental HVAC unit, and a new layout of the lab to reconfigure and add MEP services, relocate the emergency shower and add new supplemental cooling units.

The lab was designed with floor to ceiling windows to provide a warm and natural feel to the space. Natural polypropylene was the best material for this laboratory due to its acid resistant properties.