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My name is Wolfgang Wetzstein. I am a medical technology specialist and head of the laboratory for stem cell and cell therapeutics here at the hospital in Aachen. As you can see, we are standing here in completely new rooms. We needed the new rooms for our patients to store more samples, to be able to develop further and to be able to offer new preparations for the people in our region.
We have put out a European tender for everything that has been installed here in this building. With nitrogen it was about an outdoor tank and about the entire system, which is in this room as you can see. There were several applicants and Consarctic agreed with our tender criteria in the vast majority of points. And that's also one of those points, where we feel really valued and understood. They sat down together with us, thought about how to implement it and our ideas, our suggestions were implemented. That's why Consarctic was also awarded the contract and we are highly satisfied with the way it was implemented and feel really involved and really appreciated.
We are very pleased that Consarctic has won the tender, because we have been working with Consarctic for a long time and have only had consistently positive experiences so far. The service has been great at any time if there was any need. We promptly received emergency aid. And it’s available 24/7. We are very, very satisfied and also happy that we have such a good cooperation.
With the current system, as it is currently installed, we can process and create twice as much as we did before. And that was very, very much, as the case numbers show. We are very pleased that we can now do even more. We are very well positioned in terms of personnel and now we are also very well positioned technically. We are really looking forward to the future and to the things we will be able to do in the future.
The Consarctic freezing system was actually not part of the tender, but we have been using this system for years or decades (the predecessor). We are highly satisfied with that. They make a very targeted, controlled and directed freezing curves. The temperature reduction for our preparations, which is associated in a very, very good vitality and a impressive outcome with a reasonable freezing process by our colleagues in the laboratory with an outcome of a vitality of over 95% with 34 positive cells.
Finally, the best of all: Our large, impressive nitrogen outdoor tank provides us with security of supply for the preparations. 12,000 liters of liquid nitrogen fit into it. It was built in a very uncomplicated way including lines and well thought out with intermediate storage, so that we don't have big losses that then go up in smoke, which we ultimately pay, but then in the end have nothing to gain from it. Overall, we are very satisfied with the cooperation with Consarctic. I am very satisfied, I personally feel very, very well looked after and that's why I recommend Consarctic to anyone else who also has to do with liquid nitrogen.
Until the end of 2025, the stem cell laboratory was supplied via individual feed tanks that fed into a vacuum-insulated nitrogen line.
The sample storage containers were already refilling automatically, but only as long as liquid nitrogen was available from the feed tanks. To refill them, the feed tanks had to be transported across the university hospital.
While this worked, it regularly consumed staff time and tied the safety of the samples to the manual refilling of the supply tanks. Furthermore, with seven sample storage containers, the system had reached its capacity limit, and the technology was aging. The University Hospital RWTH Aachen issued a public tender for the new cryogenic infrastructure.
Liquid nitrogen displaces oxygen. In a room with 13 containers and two freezers, occupational safety is therefore not an optional extra, but an integral part of the system logic. In Aachen, four mechanisms work in tandem.
A Dräger oxygen deficiency warning system monitors the oxygen levels in the room. If it is triggered, the main FMCS Touch controller shuts off the nitrogen supply to the entire building and to every individual tank connected to it (supply tank and sample storage containers).
During normal operation, the room runs with an optimal double air exchange rate. In the event of an alarm, or whenever the BIOFREEZE® freezers start up and release more gas, the ventilation automatically increases to an eightfold air exchange rate.
The cold exhaust gas is routed out of the building via a ring main to prevent gas from accumulating in the cryo-storage area.
If the FMCS Touch detects a fault, the controller shuts down the system to ensure user safety. The system can only be reset once the fault has been rectified.
All alarms are also routed to the university hospital's building management system, with fill levels and pressure values transmitted accordingly. This ensures absolute monitoring.
FMCS Touch (Filling Management Control System) is the central control unit. It coordinates all 13 automatic refilling systems, monitors fill levels and pressures in the external tank, buffer storage, and vacuum lines, manages pre-cooling, and shuts down the system in the event of a fault. It optimizes consumption during refilling to minimize losses.
Biolog® is Consarctic®'s proprietary monitoring software, which runs on a laboratory PC. It logs temperatures, fill levels, and events for every individual sample storage container—the foundation for GMP compliance documentation.
In short: FMCS Touch answers "Is the system running safely?", while Biolog® answers "What happened to which container and when?"
The stem cell laboratory at the University Hospital RWTH Aachen operates a Consarctic® system consisting of 11 BSR420+ cryo-containers, 2 BSF220+ containers, two BIOFREEZE® SMARTLINE and BV45 freezers, and a 16,000-liter external tank with 74.9 meters of vacuum piping. It is controlled via FMCS Touch and documented using Biolog®.
In Aachen, two technicians required about three weeks for installation, including the external tank, 74.9 meters of vacuum piping, exhaust lines, wiring, and commissioning.
The preceding planning and tendering phase is project-dependent and typically takes significantly longer than the installation itself.
In vapor phase storage, samples are not submerged in liquid nitrogen but stored in the cold gas above it—at approximately −180 °C in the Aachen facility. Because there is no liquid medium connecting the samples, cross-contamination between specimens is impossible—a prerequisite for storing clinical cell therapy products.
Via standardized interfaces: In Aachen, FMCS Touch reports all alarms to the university hospital's building management system and transmits fill levels and pressure values as a 4–20 mA signal.
Additionally, the control system receives alarms from the Dräger oxygen monitoring system and shuts off the nitrogen supply to the building in the event of oxygen deficiency.
Consarctic GmbH plans, builds, qualifies, and maintains complete cryogenic systems for GMP facilities—from tender support to external tanks, piping, containers, and control systems, all the way to IQ/OQ documentation and maintenance contracts.
Consarctic® has been certified to EN ISO 13485 and ISO 9001 since 2004 and serves more than 1,500 customers in over 30 countries.
The price depends on the number of containers, pipe length, size of the external tank, and the building's safety requirements — a system of this scale is always planned individually. Following an on-site assessment, Consarctic® will provide a detailed quote including qualification and maintenance.
The project in Aachen demonstrates what optimal nitrogen supply looks like when planned as a complete system from the outset: storage, distribution, containment, freezing, monitoring, and occupational safety are integrated rather than assembled from individual components.
The facility was commissioned in January 2026 and is now operational. The existing sample inventory was transferred to the new containers in September 2026.
Are you planning a new build, an expansion, or the replacement of an existing facility? Consarctic® supports you from the initial assessment and tender documentation to IQ/OQ validation, the relocation of your existing samples, and subsequent testing/maintenance of the system — including 24/7 emergency service.