Displaying items by tag: gowning

Cleanrooms are designed and constructed to prevent contamination from airborne particles. The elimination or ability to minimize these harmful particles from getting into your cleanroom is imperative to your manufacturing processes and ultimately to the safety of your products.

Keeping cleanrooms contaminant-free is a fundamentally crucial goal. When contaminants enter a cleanroom, it can cost a significant amount of money to remediate the facility. In extreme cases, the cost of a fast-spreading fungal, viral or bacterial infection can be human lives.

Cleanrooms are controlled environments designed to reduce the amount of debris and particles within the area. These controlled zones are meant to protect sensitive samples and electronic components, which need safeguarding even from small motes of dust, skin cells, hair and other tiny debris. Cleanrooms are often used in electronics manufacturing, food production, medical research and scientific laboratories.

Proper cleaning procedures and maintenance are crucial to preserving the cleanliness, contamination control, and efficiency of cleanroom processes. Each cleanroom receives a different cleanliness classification based on the industrial application that the cleanroom operates in, as well as other environmental considerations. Each cleanroom class has a slightly different protocol when it comes to gowning, protocol, and supplies. For ISO 7 (Formerly Class 10,000) cleanrooms, these gowning requirements need careful consideration.

Cleanrooms are typically used in scientific research and manufacturing to provide a controlled environment for handling sensitive components and samples. Cleanrooms are constructed in a way to minimize particles from being introduced, generated or retained inside the room. Depending on the cleanroom classification and application, the gowning procedure may vary. However, the following sequence is basically the same.

Manufacturers invest hundreds—even thousands—of dollars per square foot of cleanroom space to meet ISO-proscribed particle counts. Shouldn't the same standards be required of the people who enter and potentially contaminate this ultra-clean environment?

After the cleanroom has passed certification, cleanroom personnel must don the required cleanroom apparel applicable to the classification of the cleanroom. IEST-RP-CC003.3 contains a chart of recommended gowning configurations and frequency of change of garments based on the Air Cleanliness Classes of ISO 14644-1. Many clean-room operations require the cleanroom personnel to change from street clothes to 100% polyester building suits or tech suits to reduce the amount of particle contamination in the cleanroom environment. The garment system selected must meet the specifications for the clean-room applications. Facility requirements for changing areas, lockers, in-use garment storage, soiled garment storage, garment inventory storage, and internal inventory transit must be defined. Additionally cleanroom garment laundering and othergarment management services must be defined and subcontracted. 

Garment should produce little or no particulate emission. This requires the fabric or material to be stable, possessing a high ability to resist breakdown.