CoolCell FAQ

The CoolCell can be used in a -70ºC to -80ºC environment. This includes mechanical freezers at -70ºC to -80ºC and dry ice lockers (typically stable at -75ºC). The CoolCell will freeze at -1ºC per minute under these conditions. CoolCell should not be used with liquid nitrogen vapor phase freezers because the contents will freeze much faster than -1ºC per minute when placed in a -150ºC environment.

Just like an alcohol-filled container, the CoolCell cools down and warms up at 1C per minute. When recovered from a -80ºC freezer, the samples will reach -50ºC in about 30 minutes. Opening either container and exposing the cryovials to room temperature will warm them much faster (about 30ºC /min) so be careful to have a bed of dry ice in a pan to immediately empty the samples onto when transferring from -80ºC to LN2 storage.

Yes. The CoolCell releases about one-third the amount of heat given off by an alcohol-filled container per sample. So, with the CoolCell, you can freeze 54 samples with the same heat load into the freezer as would be generated by 18 samples in an alcohol-filled container. This makes CoolCell ideal for batch production of multiple sample sets.

While a closed CoolCell will protect samples below -50ºC for 30 minutes, an open, empty CoolCell can be recycled to room temperature in just minutes for the next freeze cycle. After emptying samples onto dry ice for transfer to LN2 (always do this with the samples from either an alcohol-filled container or CoolCell), remove the center solid thermal ballast ring from the CoolCell. The CoolCell insulator jacket and ballast will warm up in minutes because of their low thermal mass, while an alcohol-filled container will take hours to warm back up. Make sure the CoolCell is dry, replace the central ring, and the CoolCell is ready for the next freezing cycle.

Yes, it is ideal for that. Because CoolCell fast recycle time allows two freezing runs per shift and three times as many samples in the freezer per cycle, the production through-put using CoolCell can exceed six-fold that of an alcohol container based process.

The CoolCell is designed for an unlimited number of duty cycles with no change in performance. The CoolCell is precision machined from a high density polyethylene foam and both the housing and alloy core should last a lifetime and beyond.

No, pre-cooling is not necessary with CoolCell. Room-temperature alcohol filled containers will re-warm chilled samples up to 12ºC even when placed immediately in the freezer. A room-temperature CoolCell will insulate iced samples below 5ºC peak temperature prior to onset of freezing.

Of course. And, unlike alcohol filled containers, an explosion-proof refrigerator is not necessary. In side by side tests with an alcohol filled container and CoolCell, with both containers pre-cooled to 4ºC, the ice temperature samples in the CoolCell still initiated freezing six minutes faster than those in the alcohol filled container. This is another benefit of CoolCells low thermal mass.

The time it takes between placing samples into the freezer and the onset of fusion is called freezing lag. Minimizing exposure time to DMSO cryoprotectant solution before freezing is increasingly thought to be important for cell health. The CoolCells low thermal mass reduces freezing lag time to less than one-half of the delay caused by alcohol filled freezing containers and reduces exposure time to DMSO.

CoolCell is a cross-linked closed-cell dense polyethylene foam. This makes it ideal for cleaning with aqueous detergents, alcohol, bleach, and acid/base viricide (such as Virkon S) solutions. Rinse with clear water after using cleaning solutions. The material has excellent resistance to fluid absorption and abrasion. Ensure sample bays and tubes are dry before a freezing cycle to prevent sticking.

No. Just ensure the CoolCell is dry before adding vials, close the lid, and freeze. Also, the CoolCell lid can't freeze shut like screw-top containers. CoolCell is virtually maintenance free.