SEL develops vaccine ultra-cold storage system

PULLMAN — Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories has developed a specialized temperature monitoring and logging system for ultra-cold environments required to store new coronavirus vaccines.

The idea for the SEL-2411TM Temperature Monitor Digital Data Logger came about two weeks ago when Moscow’s Gritman Medical Center spokesman Kane Francetich contacted SEL. He was in search of two ultra-low temperature monitors for the freezers that will store the incoming vaccines, but found they were on back order.

“When we received the email from Kane asking if we had a product that could help, we thought about what they needed and realized that we could modify one of our existing products to not only perform the tasks they needed but to do it very accurately, reliably and in a user-friendly way,” SEL President and Chief Technology Officer Ed Schweitzer said. “Our R&D folks went right to work and had an excellent solution within a week.”

Engineers made several modifications to the SEL-2411 Programmable Logic Controller, a device designed to monitor sensors in harsh electrical substation and industrial environments.

The SEL-2411TM, which features an optimized display and SEL-designed temperature probes, works with any commercial refrigerator, freezer or ultra-cold freezer as a primary or secondary system to monitor temperatures at an accuracy of ±1 degree Celsius and record temperature data at configurable points in time. If a temperature fluctuation is detected, the display on the digital data logger turns red and an alert is sent. The plug-and-play device can monitor up to eight cooling units simultaneously.

“Keeping the COVID-19 vaccines safe and at a specific temperature throughout the handling and storage process is critically important,” Francetich said. “We are grateful to be using this unique technology made right here on the Palouse by Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories to help make sure the vaccine doses we will receive are kept safe are ready for use.”

The product is now monitoring the ultra-cold freezer and other special refrigeration units at Gritman.