Displaying items by tag: cleaning

Research and development cleanrooms that operate on a daily basis for pharmaceutical or electronics development organizations, among others, must maintain the sanctity of their cleanroom space with proper, professional and thorough cleaning—nothing less. Avoiding or improperly cleaning the controlled space can result in catastrophic cross contamination, wrongful results, lawsuits or worse.

Whether lab technicians like it or not, cleanrooms are exposed to contaminants. Adulteration can occur from personnel, equipment, or even incorrect decontamination processes. Since many cleaning methods exist, it’s important to select one that’s best for your application; an careless technique may redeposit contaminants onto surfaces rather than take them away. Understanding particle-to-surface bonding (electrical, physical, or chemical) is one of the first steps to optimal cleaning efficiency. Keep reading for more tips that ensure your cleanroom remains clean.

Cleanroom cleaning requires many specialised products. Dr Tim Sandle, head of microbiology, Bio Products Laboratory, addresses the importance of product selection and cleaning techniques in the pharmaceutical manufacturing environment.

After you’ve dedicated your time and resources to outfit your cleanroom with the best materials and equipment, you want to make sure to maintain an exceptionally clean environment so your cleanroom can function at peak performance. A lot of factors go into making sure your cleanroom is as clean as possible, from the products you use to the staff that use them. No matter what class rating your cleanroom has, cleaning your cleanroom will ensure longevity and improve efficiency.

Why clean the room? It’s a cleanroom, isn’t it? This was the most popular question when we began cleaning cleanrooms in 1980. Owners and operators often assumed that because their cleanrooms were equipped with state-of-the-art air filtration systems and other safeguards, normal cleaning procedures were optional or even unnecessary.

Modular CMM enclosures are used to provide a controlled environment for your coordinate measuring machines. Using your equipment inside a CMM room protects it from environmental factors and allows your machine to provide X, Y, and Z coordinates with increased accuracy.

It is recommended you read the list of approved and banned materials first. For computers and associated equipment, please let the cleanroom manager knows you plan to bring these items in and if you require LAN access from within the cleanroom. Before entering any part of the cleanroom, pre-clean the items with IPA and fibre free wipes. Detailed cleaning instructions will follow this general guideline. For equipment such as computers, keyboards etc, vacuum clean using a general purpose vacuum cleaner. Particular attention should be paid to the ventilation ports. This pre clean should be done external to the cleanroom and anteroom and items should be covered with clean bagging material, but not of cleanroom quality. As a guide, notebook computers are preferred to desktop computers (although this is not always practical) not only due to size but also from a cleanliness aspect. Clean all equipment at an external location to the cleanroom. This equipment can then be bagged to minimize contamination.

Who is best suited to perform housekeeping in a clean environment? Those that work in the cleanroom, a special in-house cleaning team, or an outside cleaning service? There are advantages and disadvantages to each, say cleaning supply representatives.

In order to meet project contamination cleanliness requirements, ground support equipment (GSE) used in clean areas at MSSL for flight hardware integration and testing needs to be cleaned at regular intervals. This is to ensure that surface contamination levels are minimized and the possibility of contamination redistribution from the GSE to the flight hardware is significantly reduced.

Course cleaning

• Determine the surface sensitivity to handling and solvents. If the surface is sensitive to IPA or acetone, use filtered critical neutral detergent. If the surface is sensitive to handling, limit or eliminate vacuum use and handling as necessary to prevent GSE damage.

• If computing equipment is to be brought into clean areas laptop devices are preferred. If this is not possible desktop computers should be thoroughly cleaned inside and outside the casing paying particular attention to exhaust fans from the power supply. 

• Computer monitors should be thoroughly vacuumed paying particular attention to the monitor vents prior to cleaning procedure below.

• Computer keyboards should be turned upside down and a jet of clean filtered compressed air or nitrogen directed between the keys prior to cleaning procedure listed below. 

• Remove loose particles from the GSE by thoroughly vacuuming all surfaces, including holes, crevices, and corners, with a vacuum cleaner. This step should not be performed for items sensitive to handling. Minimize direct nozzle contact with GSE surfaces and continue until no particles are visible on GSE surfaces.