Other resources

Besides water taps, at every lab at ITQB you can find yellow, green on blue, yellow on blue, and grey taps that, respectively, provide natural gas, nitrogen, compressed air, and access to a vacuum line. These resources are essential to many types of research but unnecessary to others. Please be efficient in the use of these resources.

colour code for taps at ITQB

• Be rational in the use of the centrally provided natural gas and nitrogen.

• Avoid leaving a gas burner on if it is not strictly necessary. 

• Many leaks can be prevented if the flow of natural gas or nitrogen is only available for those laboratories that use it. Make sure they are necessary in your laboratory and otherwise call the maintenance services to close them down.

• Vacuum is maintained centrally using a large vacuum pump located on the 8th floor. It is made available to every lab. Use only when needed.

• Leaks reduce vacuum / compressed air efficiency making it necessary to increase the power of the pump.

• Unnecessary leaks can be prevented if vacuum (or compressed air) is only available for those who need it in their research. Make sure your laboratory needs to use the vacuum line/compressed air, and, if not, inform the maintenance services.

• Be carefull and don't allow any liquid to be sucked into the vacuum line.

• When collecting liquid nitrogen from central storage be sure to take the required amount. Store the liquid N2 in the cold room to avoid losses.

• In the lab: bring in only the necessary liquid N2 for your experiment.