Incubation & Heating

In microbiology, an incubator is a device for controlling the temperature, humidity, and other conditions under which a microbiological culture is being grown. The simplest incubators are insulated boxes with an adjustable heater, typically going up to approx. 65 °C, even some can go slightly higher but generally to no more than 100 °C. More advanced incubators may also have the ability to lower the temperature (via refrigeration), and/or the ability to control humidity or even  CO2 levels.This feature is specifically designed for cell growth.

Most incubators provide both outer doors as well as inner doors often made in glass for transparency. Main controller includes a timer; some can also be programmed to cycle through different temperatures, humidity levels, etc. Incubators can vary in size from tabletop to units the size of small rooms. Incubators could also provide special features such as regulation of shake speed, measured by revolutions per minute.

As for temperature, most commonly used is 37 degrees Celsius being the normal human body temperature because most bacteria, especially the frequently used E. Coli, grow  well under such conditions. For other applications lower temperatures are required, e.g for fish cells a growth temperature of  25 °C is optimal.