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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.

There are a number of sources of contaminants which may find their way into your controlled area.

How you validate your cleaning regime is just as important as how you are cleaning your facility and controlling your environment.

Cleanrooms, by definition, are designed to control airborne particulate and environmental conditions. Cleanrooms can be positive or negative pressure environments that sweep a specified area with HEPA filtered air. Critical pharmaceutical, microbiological, and nanotechnological areas require adherence to exacting performance requirements. TSS’ certification programs verify that your facilities perform to appropriate international standards and client specifications.

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.

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.