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Services < Cleanroom Air Filtration

Clean Rooms can contain particulates and volatile organic compounds (VOC) that can significantly impact the quality of manufactured products.

Clean rooms require ongoing sampling to ensure continued air quality. Dedicated, expensive equipment is often required.

Indoor air purity is essential to cleanroom operations. Once built and in use, follow-on air sampling is necessary to assure continued air quality. While there are many existing systems in operation, most require dedicated, expensive equipment and constant monitoring and maintenance. Scientific Air Solutions offers a low-cost, low-maintenance strategy for assuring high-quality air filtration for cleanroom applications.

Our process is simple:

1. Grid the cleanroom space in 10m sq grids. Using the MB1 MicroBio Air Sampler, sample the air in the middle of each quadrant.
2. Analyze the samples using the MicroBio PC Reporter software and save the data to a spreadsheet.
3. Using our Spatial Mapping Software, analyze the results for the air flow and contamination hot spots within the facility.
4. Based on the results, identify the air filtration requirements necessary for the room volume.
5. Install the necessary filtration equipment and after 48 hours, resample the air quality.

Federal Standard 209E (FS209E) has long been the only definition of cleanroom classification levels available from a standards organization. FS209E, Airborne Particulate Cleanliness Classes in Clean Rooms and Clean Zones, is from the U.S. General Service Administration and approved for use by all U.S. agencies. In the absence of an international standard, FS 209E is broadly used internationally.

The cleanliness classification levels defined by FS209E and ISO 14644-1 are approximately equal, except the new ISO standard uses new class designations, a metric measure of air volume and adds three additional classes - two cleaner than Class 10 and one beyond than Class 100,000. The second new ISO standard, ISO 14644-2, gives requirements for monitoring a cleanroom or clean zone to provide evidence of its continued compliance with ISO 14644-1.

For example, to certify an FS Class 10 cleanroom (ISO class 4), with 250 square feet (7.08 square meters), classified at 0.3 micron with a 1 cf/m flow rate particle counter, the required number of sample locations, sample volumes, and sample times would be as follows:

FS209E requires 10 sample locations, 19.6 liter minimum sample volume (0.85 cf), and a sample time of 51 seconds. This yields a total minimum sample time of 510 seconds and 10 equipment moves.

ISO 14644-1 requires 3 sample locations, 19.6 liter minimum sample volume (0.85 cf ), but also a minimum sample time of one minute yielding three samples of one cubic foot. This yields a total sample time of 180 seconds and three equipment moves.