Cleanroom Equipment

What is a clean room?

What is a cleanroom?

Cleanrooms are defined as a specially constructed enclosed area, environmentally controlled with respect to airborne particulate, temperature , humidity, air pressure , airflow patterns, air motion, vibration, noise, viable ( living) organisms and lighting.

How are cleanrooms classified?

Cleanrooms ar classified by the cleanliness of the air . There are number of world wide standards but the most easily understood and universally applied is that of US federal standard 209 in which the number of particles equal to and greater than 0.5mm is measured in a cubic foot of air and this count is used to classify the room which blows off any particles using high velocity air .

What do the classifications mean?

A Class 10 cleanroom has no more than 10 micron sized particles passing through each cubic foot of air per minute. A class 100,000 may have up to one hundred thousand particles per cubic foot. For comparison, your home has around 300,000 and a hospital operating room has about 1,000.

How big is a Micron ?

A micron is a millionth of a meter. Tiny, ever compared to a human hair which is about 100 microns.

Where do all these tiny particles come from?

Most particulate contamination comes from people and material. We are shedding particulate matter , even by breathing.

What does “HEPA’ stand for?

High Efficiency Particulate Air . These replaceable filters will catch almost 100% of particles, as small as 0.3 microns.

What does “ULPA” stand for?

Ultra Low Penetration Air . These filters can remove almost 100% of particles as small as 0.1 micron from circulating air .

How do cleanrooms stay clean?

In several ways clean rooms are constructed from materials that are inert and non-particle shedding. Clean room technicians wear special clothing that is designed not to shed or let particles escape. Often before entering the clean room, personnell walk through an air shower .

Also in clean rooms, places where dust could settle, such as ledges and mouldings, are minimized. An air flow pattern called laminar is created that constantly cleans the air by directing and re-circulating it through special filters.

What is Laminar flow?

It is the flow of air through a cleanroom. One example of this is when the air moves from the ceiling to the floor and then forced up through the walls to be filtered above the ceiling. It then re-enters the room and the cycle continues .

What is an Air shower?

It’s a hallway or room leading to the entrance of the clean room. Often there is an airshower between the dressing room or gowning area and the main entrance to the clean room . In the air shower , high velocity air blows off debris that could contaminate the clean room environment.

What is a pass-through?

A pass-through(pass-thru) is a chamber that allows items to be moved between cleanrooms or between cleanrooms and non- clean room areas. Less traffic in and out of the cleanroom means fewer chances for contaminates to enter . Pass-throughs can also be designed so that only one door will open at a time. This is in conjunction with higher air pressure inside the cleanroom, forces particles out when the inner door opens.