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What is contamination?

What are the risks?

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What is contamination?

Contaminants are invisible bacteria or organisms that are potentially harmful to their surroundings. More familiar contaminants can be things such as dust and dirt. Studies by 3M have shown that over 80% of contamination enters the clean room through entrances and exits, mostly at or near floor level. Contaminants are particles that enter an environment where they may potentially have a negative effect. There are many types of contaminants and they can have a wide variety of effects on many different businesses. When we can’t see particles, there is the tendency to ignore taking preventative measures, but somewhere which might appear clean can potentially be heavily contaminated, as most harmful contaminants are invisible to the naked eye. Some contaminants are capable of living, developing or germinating under favourable conditions (viable), whereas some contaminants are not (non-viable). Contaminants can be carried on any surface entering a critical area, or in the air. Particles can be suspended in the air for hours where they undergo rapid proliferation, contaminating the surrounding environment. Once there is no movement and turbulence stops, airborne contaminants fall. If they fall onto an unprotected floor they may rise again as a result of the vortices created by the movement of personnel and wheeled traffic. If left uncontrolled, floor level contamination can be redistributed into the air by vortices caused by any movement of a body through the critical environment. The effect of this can be seriously destructive. Since 80% of all contamination enters an environment at floor level, without an effective control method you could be quadrupling the viable contamination in the air. High levels of air-borne contamination could lead to microbial corruption of cleanroom surfaces which in turn potentially contaminates and poses a threat to product processes, the consequences of which are lower product yields, raised costs and decreased profits.

What is a cleanroom?

A cleanroom is an enclosed space in which airborne particulates, contaminant and pollutants are kept within strict limits. Cleanrooms are 10,000 times cleaner than a hospital operating room and therefore require an extremely stringent approach to controlling possible contamination.

For more details on cleanroom click here

For more details on cleanroom standards click here