About T Squared
An independent company, with our contracting activities as our core business, we are focussed on deriving and delivering innovative ways of working.
Our keenly honed short lines of decision-making enable fast introduction of any change in the ways we operate which we believe will produce benefits to customers and staff alike.
Our personnel are carefully selected to ensure their characteristics can follow through our belief that each and every person needs to be the best they can be.
From Laboratory and Cleanroom Design to Build, and Management to Maintenance, we can take care of as much or as little of the project as you require.
Why are Cleanrooms Required?
Critical processes in pharmaceutical production, microelectronics production, medical research and biotechnology processes are affected by contamination from either dust particles or microbial particles which occur naturally in the atmosphere.
In the international Cleanroom standards ISO 14644-1 a Cleanroom is defined as follows: -
"A room in which the concentration of airborne particles is controlled and which is constructed and used in a manner to minimise the introduction, generation and retention of particles inside the room and in which other relevant parameters, e.g. temperature, humidity and pressure are controlled as necessary."
The problems fall into two categories: -
- In industrial applications the dust contamination might prevent the product from functioning or on a lesser scale the reliability of the product would make it impossible to market - here the expense of the Cleanrooms are justified on financial grounds by increasing product yields
- In medical applications the presence of microbial particles might lead to the growth of contamination in the product being produced and this could lead to infection in the patients - here the decision to build Cleanrooms is a regulatory decision
The first use for Clean or Sterile facilities was in hospitals where Operating Theatres adopted the use of antiseptics to keep everything sterile to prevent patient infection. This was at the time of Lister but it was much later, in the nineteen sixties that the introduction of mechanical ventilation systems was first used to control airborne contamination.
Nowadays Cleanrooms and Clean Laboratories are used for a vast number of processes, a few of which are listed below.
Healthcare - operating theatres, pharmacies, isolation of contagions
Food Production - disease free food and drink products
Automobile Industry - expensive carbon fibre panels formed in Cleanrooms
Microelectronics - computer components
Medical Devices - surgical sutures and any other body invasive products
Biotechnology - stem cell research
Electronics - TV and Hi-Fi components
Pharmaceutical - drug manufacture and testing
Types of Cleanrooms
Cleanrooms are designed and constructed to form a sealed enclosure around the process with the floors, walls and ceilings being designed to provide smooth, cleanable surfaces with no ledges or sharp edges where particles might accumulate.
Cleanroom Walls
There are numerous different types of walling systems that can be used to construct a Cleanroom. The following list includes the more common options: -
- Plasterboard stud partitions with a washable anti-bacterial paint finish
- Plasterboard stud partitions with a welded vinyl finish
- Double skin powder coated modular metal panels . demountable partition systems offer some tax advantages and are flexible if changes are a possibility for the future
- Modular laminate wall panels
Cleanroom Ceilings
Cleanroom ceilings differ from normal ceilings in that they must be airtight. This means that special airtight light fittings are required and if ceiling grids are used the tiles must be sealed into the grid. It is quite common for Cleanroom ceilings to be structural so that service engineers can access the area above to carry out maintenance to the light fittings, HEPA filters and other parts of the HVAC plant.
Cleanroom Floors
It is a requirement for all Cleanrooms that the connection between the floor and the walls should be coved to avoid sharp crevices where particles could build up to problem concentration levels. These are normally formed using plastic cove formers with the vinyl floor being welded up under the partition to produce a smooth joint with no ledges.
As an alternative to welded vinyl harder wearing liquid resin based floors can also be used and these can be provided with anti-slip properties as the Cleanroom requirements dictate.
In Cleanrooms where lower particle levels are required there are much higher airflow rates involved and beyond that the airflow patterns also need to be strictly controlled. Here the aim is to produce a laminar flow of Clean air from top to bottom and this can only be achieved by installation a raised floor with return air tiles sited in a regular pattern across the area.
Depending upon the production process anti-static floors may also be an essential option to the Cleanroom designer.