In a -196°C liquid nitrogen environment, an ordinary label either loses its adhesive and falls off, becomes brittle and cracks, or fades until the text disappears. This long-standing problem plaguing biotech companies, research institutes, and medical institutions has now been solved by NIIMBOT.
The NIIMBOT M2 Liquid Nitrogen Label Printer, which fills this gap, is now a bestseller in over 50 countries and regions worldwide.
NIIMBOT is a company that produces portable smart label printers. This breakthrough originated from a question posed by a vaccine researcher at a university: "Can you make a label that can withstand liquid nitrogen?"
With this question in mind, NIIMBOT's market team visited medical institutions, biopharmaceutical companies, universities, and research institutes across various cities. They discovered a significant demand for liquid nitrogen labels, but there were no manufacturers in China capable of producing the corresponding printers and labels. The usual solution was simply to write by hand.
After two months of market research, NIIMBOT decided to develop a liquid nitrogen label printer.
The challenge in creating a label printer for this specific use case lay in finding low-temperature-resistant materials and adjusting the printer's compatibility with these materials. During the initial development phase, they spent three months testing and comparing over ten types of materials. After hundreds of tests and multiple rounds of customer feedback, they finally identified the suitable label material.
With the efforts of more than ten researchers and an investment of several million yuan, NIIMBOT's first liquid nitrogen label printer, the B18 (now renamed N1), was launched after a year and a half of development. NIIMBOT became the first to provide a systematic solution that includes both the printer and liquid nitrogen label paper.
In addition to innovations in materials, they also made breakthroughs in software. By optimizing the printer's internal sensors through algorithms, they achieved a minimum label width of 9.5 millimeters, meeting the need for labels to be as small as possible in liquid nitrogen environments.
In the laboratory, researchers retrieved a batch of cryotubes from a -196°C liquid nitrogen environment. Each tube was affixed with a finger-sized label indicating the type of cells. After a month of freezing in ultra-low temperatures, the labels remained clear and firmly attached.
The laboratory director explained that the previous method of marking cryotubes was to write on them by hand. However, this was time-consuming, and prolonged exposure to room temperature could damage the cells. Alternatively, pre-marking the tubes before freezing posed a risk of contamination. These two factors combined typically resulted in a 30% loss of cells during freezing.
They had previously tried using adhesive labels, but ordinary label paper would become stiff and lose its adhesive properties in liquid nitrogen, causing the labels to fall off. "Liquid nitrogen labels not only prevent smudging but are also convenient and time-saving, helping us reduce cell loss," the director said.
In 2024, NIIMBOT launched its latest liquid nitrogen label printer, the M2, which features further upgrades: doubled label paper capacity, computer connectivity, and compatibility with standard label carbon ribbons.
