Prepping For A Clean Room
April 19, 2022 8:26 AM Subscribe
I have just been tasked with finding the "supplies we need for the prep area of a clean room". I need to find this ASAP, but I don't know what to find. Where can I find a list of what those supplies might be?
My company is on a push to get a "clean room" set up for testing things, and we've gotten the supplies together for the clean room itself. My boss realized we also need to outfit the prep area for the people who are ENTERING the clean room, and asked me to look into finding those things. But when I search for "clean room prep area supplies" I don't have much luck - I get a lot of artices on "what to wear a clean room" instead, or articles on how to set up a laundry area, or "use our company to set up your clean room for you" ads or suchlike. My boss mentioned a couple things (he said something about disposable lab coats maybe) but wasn't sure what else we might need.
I would like to find a list of some basic things you might need - benches for people to sit on? Disposable gloves? Wipes so people can wipe their hands? Bunny ears? I need to do the legwork to FIND the stuff, but I just need to know what stuff to find first.
My company is on a push to get a "clean room" set up for testing things, and we've gotten the supplies together for the clean room itself. My boss realized we also need to outfit the prep area for the people who are ENTERING the clean room, and asked me to look into finding those things. But when I search for "clean room prep area supplies" I don't have much luck - I get a lot of artices on "what to wear a clean room" instead, or articles on how to set up a laundry area, or "use our company to set up your clean room for you" ads or suchlike. My boss mentioned a couple things (he said something about disposable lab coats maybe) but wasn't sure what else we might need.
I would like to find a list of some basic things you might need - benches for people to sit on? Disposable gloves? Wipes so people can wipe their hands? Bunny ears? I need to do the legwork to FIND the stuff, but I just need to know what stuff to find first.
I watch a lot of How It's Made videos, and in pretty much every one where there's a semiconductor or food clean room, they rub their outer clothes down with a lint roller before going in.
posted by moonmilk at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2022
posted by moonmilk at 8:38 AM on April 19, 2022
I (very) occasionally work professionally in cleanrooms.
At the risk of being unhelpful, you should not buy anything without knowing the exact specifications of the cleanroom your work is trying to build, and preferably only buy things at the exact specification of someone involved in the construction of the cleanroom. The items you'd buy for a class 100,000 cleanroom are quite different than a class 10 cleanroom. Importantly, if the wrong items are purchased, the cleanroom may fail its cleanroom certification, which could lead to delays in work with the cleanroom or expensive corrective work.
posted by saeculorum at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2022 [16 favorites]
At the risk of being unhelpful, you should not buy anything without knowing the exact specifications of the cleanroom your work is trying to build, and preferably only buy things at the exact specification of someone involved in the construction of the cleanroom. The items you'd buy for a class 100,000 cleanroom are quite different than a class 10 cleanroom. Importantly, if the wrong items are purchased, the cleanroom may fail its cleanroom certification, which could lead to delays in work with the cleanroom or expensive corrective work.
posted by saeculorum at 8:40 AM on April 19, 2022 [16 favorites]
Yes, this sounds like your company is trying to dump regulatory compliance work on you and, while I don't know what your exact job is, that you don't seem to know anything about the subject already suggests to me that your position is probably not the right one to be handling this!
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on April 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on April 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
How clean do you need it to be is the really important thing to know before you start - and that will affect potentially: the air handling system, the relative pressure in this space vs your gowning area and vestibules, the equipment you need to use for housekeeping inside of it, your gowning protocols, whether you can use tree paper or have to use gross cleanroom paper, and your laundry. It also affects your safety procedures - checking your voltmeter in an electrical outlet with your bare dry hands is a different thing vs doing so wearing nitrile or latex gloves (over sweaty glove liners) from a safety perspective.
I work in a manufacturing cleanroom with very strict rules, but in school we had spaces with good air filters, heavy plastic shrouds for walls/dividers, and wore lab coats and shoe covers and had those delightful sticky-pads on the floor at every door. There’s a spectrum.
posted by janell at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I work in a manufacturing cleanroom with very strict rules, but in school we had spaces with good air filters, heavy plastic shrouds for walls/dividers, and wore lab coats and shoe covers and had those delightful sticky-pads on the floor at every door. There’s a spectrum.
posted by janell at 8:48 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Hi folks,
I think that part of my lack of specificity is coming from my boss (who can be rather vague himself on describing what he has in mind). I'm going to send that list jacqulinne posted above to him and ask HIM to say "is this what you meant"; even if it's not, it will prompt him to actually divulge the contents of his head in greater depth.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think that part of my lack of specificity is coming from my boss (who can be rather vague himself on describing what he has in mind). I'm going to send that list jacqulinne posted above to him and ask HIM to say "is this what you meant"; even if it's not, it will prompt him to actually divulge the contents of his head in greater depth.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
As others have said, it would be worth specifying what standard of clean you're looking for. "clean room" can refer to anything from a bench under a hepa filter with glove requirements to a space where everyone wears full body and face covers with millions of dollars of airflow engineering. (There are ISO standards that you can use as evidence that this should be made more specific.)
If you're not requiring cleanroom suits, don't bother with lab coats. They won't help, and might hurt if you're worried about fibre particulates. A sticky shoe mat, gloves, and optionally a hair net, are very basic and things that we do in the slightly-clean lab spaces where things like wirebonders and device assembly tools live. Something to prevent spitting on things is useful, but in the era of COVID masks that's probably covered. ("Beard guard" is a trade name for the less filtery versions.)
Disposable tyvek suits, booties, a head cover and a bench to sit on when you put them on is the next step up from that. (Tyvek suits are sold as disposable, but you can re-use them for weeks. It's often far cheaper than laundering the non-disposal ones.)
posted by eotvos at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
If you're not requiring cleanroom suits, don't bother with lab coats. They won't help, and might hurt if you're worried about fibre particulates. A sticky shoe mat, gloves, and optionally a hair net, are very basic and things that we do in the slightly-clean lab spaces where things like wirebonders and device assembly tools live. Something to prevent spitting on things is useful, but in the era of COVID masks that's probably covered. ("Beard guard" is a trade name for the less filtery versions.)
Disposable tyvek suits, booties, a head cover and a bench to sit on when you put them on is the next step up from that. (Tyvek suits are sold as disposable, but you can re-use them for weeks. It's often far cheaper than laundering the non-disposal ones.)
posted by eotvos at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: HI all -
I did just find something out now - the clean room needs to be ESD-coded/compliant/whatever. Anti-dust and anti-static is the big concern. IF this helps narrow things down, we are all ears.
(Thanks - they've got a former stage manager and a former bartender working on this project and we are a bit at sea.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:57 AM on April 19, 2022
I did just find something out now - the clean room needs to be ESD-coded/compliant/whatever. Anti-dust and anti-static is the big concern. IF this helps narrow things down, we are all ears.
(Thanks - they've got a former stage manager and a former bartender working on this project and we are a bit at sea.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:57 AM on April 19, 2022
If you want to sound like you know what you know what you are talking about in a way that is also easy to Google, ask what class the cleanroom is and the square footage. That will help figure out if sticky mats and shoe covers are your level, or if self-contained breathing and major construction is your level.
I have bought lab supplies for a class 1000 cleanroom space (meaning fewer than 1000 particles per square meter), so I have some partial answers depending on what level you are talking. I suspect you’ll also want to talk to the people who will be working in the space to find out what kinds of techniques they’ll be using, and on what.
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:18 AM on April 19, 2022
I have bought lab supplies for a class 1000 cleanroom space (meaning fewer than 1000 particles per square meter), so I have some partial answers depending on what level you are talking. I suspect you’ll also want to talk to the people who will be working in the space to find out what kinds of techniques they’ll be using, and on what.
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:18 AM on April 19, 2022
Response by poster: Just checking back and marking this resolved because:
1. My boss finally said "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that [Sid] can tell you what we need" and
2. The head of purchasing came over and told me "I heard a rumor you were looking for a source for clean room stuff, here's a vendor we have a contract with".
Thanks!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:05 PM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
1. My boss finally said "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that [Sid] can tell you what we need" and
2. The head of purchasing came over and told me "I heard a rumor you were looking for a source for clean room stuff, here's a vendor we have a contract with".
Thanks!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:05 PM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2022 [5 favorites]