Best conditions for drug testing

Safe working – New suction systems ensure safety when handling gases, aerosols, and vapors in hazardous concentrations. (Image credit: Stefan Brückner)

Best conditions – The new laboratory facility offers optimal working conditions. (Image credit: Stefan Brückner)

Maximum performance – The former State Environmental Office is now used as a drug testing center. (Image credit: Stefan Brückner)

Emphasis – After the renovation, colorful accents create a pleasant atmosphere. (Image credit: Stefan Brückner)

Conduit routing – The ceilings were deliberately left open. (Image credit: Stefan Brückner)

To provide optimal conditions for drug testing at the North Rhine-Westphalia State Center for Health, the premises of the former State Environmental Office in Münster were renovated and reorganized.

The North Rhine-Westphalia State Center for Health, abbreviated as LZG, based in Bochum and Münster, advises and supports the state government and municipalities on health and health policy issues. For work in the Department of Drug Safety, the drug testing laboratory of the NRW state, laboratory spaces equipped according to the latest standards of science and technology are essential. On the one hand, laboratory staff must be protected from hazards when handling health-threatening, sometimes carcinogenic materials. On the other hand, highly sensitive analysis systems and temperature-sensitive medicines must be protected from unsuitable room and environmental conditions. For the analytical performance often required under enormous time pressure, optimal working conditions are necessary. The Construction and Property Management NRW, Münster branch (BLB NRW), had already decided in 2017 to prepare the premises of the former State Environmental Office in Münster for use by the LZG drug testing laboratory, to adapt the office and laboratory workplaces to modern standards and increased fire protection requirements.

New Structures for Flexible Conditions

To develop as flexible working situations as possible, an optimization of the room sizes of the laboratory areas was carried out, as well as dividing the existing office spaces into two usage units. In favor of the new room layout, it was necessary to remove partition walls on the ground floor and first upper floor, close existing door openings, and demolish shaft walls to the corridor, in order to rebuild interior walls from masonry in F90 quality, including new fire doors, according to the new room arrangement. While the existing ceilings in the office areas were replaced with new suspended ceilings, the raw ceilings, including installations, were deliberately left visible after the removal of the grid ceilings in the laboratory areas. Various acoustic measures ensure a pleasant working atmosphere despite the open ceiling construction.

To ensure maximum flexibility in economical operation, the new layout of the laboratory areas is based on the standard grid for laboratory equipment. New exhaust systems enable safe work with gases, aerosols, or vapors at dangerous concentrations after the renovation measures. Exhausts for open sampling points were equipped with central exhaust scrubbers. Safety cabinets for chemicals were integrated into the exhaust systems. New laboratory workbenches and sinks provide space for wet chemical and analytical work. Energy cells, designed as façade installation elements with electrical channels, serve the media supply and disposal for the work units.

Constant Year-Round Temperature

In the basement, third upper floor, and roof area, measures were taken to retrofit the new technology. An air handling system was installed above the second upper floor and in the basement. For the design of the new systems, the laboratory spaces were divided into two categories regarding air quality and temperature stability: target temperature at 22 degrees, with an uncritical exceedance of 25 degrees; target temperature at 22 degrees, with an absolute avoidance of exceeding 25 degrees. The supply and exhaust air systems were equipped with high-performance recirculation systems as well as cooling and heating registers to condition the supply air under certain weather conditions and to compensate for additional cooling and warming loads entering the rooms. The supply and exhaust flows of the individual laboratories are controlled via variable volume flow regulators depending on demand. The different operating states for air volume regulation in the laboratory rooms are "Operation" and "Night," ensured by the laboratory control technology.

Directed Airflow

The laboratory rooms are operated under slight negative pressure so that fugitive substances cannot escape from the lab into the corridor. To achieve this, the room balance in the laboratory is influenced via volume flow regulators and the overarching control system, so that more exhaust air is drawn from the laboratory than supply air is provided. This creates a directed airflow into the laboratory. The make-up air from the corridor is supplied through the non-sealed doors to the corridor. For optimal regulation, doors and windows must be closed. If a door is still opened, the building automation system ensures the freezing of the operating system in the last operational state until the door is closed again. To ensure the complex processing depth of all measurement, control, regulation, monitoring, and optimization functions, an automation and field level was implemented. This ultimately ensures that all new facilities of the technical building equipment are regulated economically and optimally, that central switching processes are triggered, limits are monitored, and a central energy management system is carried out for cross-system energy optimization.