As with every aspect of a cleanroom, the lighting is extremely important and requires proper cleanability. In order to prevent any type of contamination, the lighting must be bacteria-free.
What type of lighting to use for a cleanroom will depend on what is being constructed in the cleanroom, its classification, and its ceiling air supply configuration.
The highly detailed work that is done in cleanrooms requires very specific requirements for the lighting. There are also other things to consider, such as how the air supply will affect the lighting system and if a combination of lighting styles will be needed.
Cleanroom Lighting Levels
Everyone knows what watts are, but there are other measurements for lighting, including how much light you need, how intense it should be, and how far you need it to go. These measurements are:
- Lumens: A unit of light. Lumens measure light output, but not distance.
- Foot-Candles: Similarly, foot-candles measure distance, but not light output. This measures luminance in a square foot.
- Lux: Measures light intensity/brightness, and interprets how the human eye sees the light.
When figuring out how much light your cleanroom will need, you should know these terms in order to know how much light you want, how intense it should be, and how far you’ll need it to go.
There are many other things to consider when determining the best cleanroom lighting for your needs, including temperature, the color of the lighting, whether fluorescents are better than LEDs for your purposes, etc. This is why it’s so important to work with a cleanroom specialist in order to know how to design the space.
Cleanrooms present plenty of challenges when creating and specifying lighting systems. The importance of keeping a cleanroom uncontaminated requires a very thorough analysis and placement of lighting types and fixtures.
