Laboratory equipment for clean rooms and critical environments

There are some facets of medicine, industry, and scientific research where an environment that is as completely free as possible of contaminants or foreign substances that may contribute undesirable factors or variables to whatever procedure is being researched, developed, or operated is needed.

To this end, laboratories with critical environments called ‘clean rooms’ have been developed. There is an enormous variety of types of facilities and apparatus and clothing designed and available for a very wide range of research and control laboratories. Cole-Parmer stocks the equipment you need for a clean room, as well as all the regular lab equipment and glassware you need.

The contamination level of a clean room has to be controlled, with a specified contamination level, which is the number of particles per cubic meter. For example, the air in a typical urban street contains approximately 35,000,000 particles per cubic meter.

An ISO 1 clean room may have no particles larger than 0.5 microns in size, and only 12 particles per cubic meter or less.

Critical developed environments can be as large as a huge factory manufacturing food or sensitive materials, biotechnology, electronic technology, medicine, or they can be as small as a premature baby’s incubator. Obviously, the degree of sterility will vary greatly.

Some ‘clean rooms’ may be modest, such as an ICU hospital ward where all instruments and equipment are sterilized, but protective clothing may be limited to a face mask and sterile gloves. In an operating room, sterile gowns, foot covers and head covers are usually added. The room is generally sealed off from the entrance of anyone not involved in the actual surgery or medical procedure.

In highly critical environments, more sophisticated clothing is sometimes used, even to the point of helmets and separate breathing apparatus. Cole-parmer has a range of protective clothing, pro-clean coveralls, gloves, head and foot coverings and masks to prevent contamination.

Everything within the clean room is sterilized and/or decontaminated. Even the cleaning materials and tools are specialized for use within the controlled environment and are kept sterile. Cole-Parmer supplies all the specialized cleaning agents, mops and brushes you need. Airflow, filtration, air pressure, humidity, and temperature are also usually monitored.

Entrances and exits are where the greatest precautions are normally taken, with a “gray room” where clothing is changed before entering a vacuum chamber, airlock or air shower, where even sterilized clothing is decontaminated before enter the clean room itself. . Cole-Parmer offers extremely useful layered adhesive-coated mats that capture dirt and dust so you don’t carry it into the clean room. When the top layer is dirty, that layer is removed to expose a fresh surface underneath.

As you can see, there is an entire industry dedicated to the production of conditions for sterility and decontamination, ranging from architecture, construction and engineering to the manufacture of protective clothing, as well as machinery, apparatus, tools and equipment. You’ll find most of the appliances and equipment you need from the specialists at Cole-Parmer.