Laminar Flows, Differences and How to Chose?

Let's start this blog with something that I think is often not clear: the differences between laminar flow cabinets and biological safety cabinets.

I hope this summary table below helps start to unfold these differences, in protection, in usages, etc.
This is obviously the overview of an issue that entails many other discussions and will be brought up recurrently herein.

Type		Protects	Does Not Protect	Usage Examples	Do not use if	Other versions and variants
Laminar Flow Cabinets		Sample	User Environment	Media Pouring	Sample may contain pathogens or harmful substances	Horizontal and Vertical laminar flows
Biological Safety Cabinets	Class I	User Environment	Sample	Microbiology	Sample cannot suffer contamination	Ducted or non-ducted, (carbon filters)
	Class II	Sample User Environment	—*	Tissue Culture	Sample contains certain radioactive isotopes	Ducted or non-ducted, 30% exhaust and 70% recirculation in the UK/EU, double HEPA exhaust in the UK, (carbon filters)

* To achieve protection of both the sample and the user, these cabinets make use of a very delicate balance between air flows. These are very prone to disruption by environmental conditions and manipulation practices. Analysis of room conditions, cabinet positioning, KI testing, user training and best practices are all crucial to obtain the level of containment required.