Application Note – Cleanroom N.05
The evolution of the Cleanroom
The Cleanroom is relatively modern development. It was the need for a clean environment for industrial manufacturing during the 1950s that led to the Clean Room as we know now.
| 1940-1945 | The Clean Room development started during the Second World War to improve the reliability of instrumentation used to produce guns and aircraft. HEPA filter were developed to contain radioactive material and microbial and chemical contaminants. The importance of contamination control in high risk hospital department was realized at this time. |
| 1950s | The company Sandia Corporation found that the contamination level was too high in Clean Room and identified a need for alternative Clean Room design. |
| 1950-1960 | The Clean Room enters the NASA space travel program. The “laminar flow” concept was introduced. |
| 1960 | The unidirectional air flow was born to obtain a better diffuser action over an entire ceiling in operation rooms. McCrone Associates begin developing particle handling techniques using tungsten needles and collodion for Class 100 Clean Room. |
| 1961 | John Charleyand and Hugh Howort in UK Hospital managed to improve unidirectional airflow by creating a downward flow of air in a much smaller area of the ceiling, directly over the operating table. |
| 1961 | The first Standard for Clean Room was published by the US Air Force: Technical Manual TOOO-25-203. The document considered Clean Room design and airborne particle standards, as well as procedures for entry, clothing and cleaning. |
| 1962 | Sandia Corporation Launched the Whilfield Ultraclean Room. Instead to use simple filter in the incoming airs they used a change of ultra clean air every six seconds. |
| 1962 | The laminar flow patent n.3158457 was issued for “Ultra Clean Room”. |
| 1965 | The specification of 0.46 m/s air velocity and requirement for 20 air changes on hour became the accepted standard. |
| 1966 | The Patent n.3273323 was submitted for the “laminar flow air-hood apparatus”. |
| 1970s | The principle of the “laminar flow” was translated from the laboratory to wide application in production processes. |
| 1980s | Steris developed the use of Hydrogen peroxide gas for decontamination / sterilization of Clean Room with the trade mark VHP ( Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide). |
| 1980 | Ing. Huber developed a clean room ceiling, called “Euro Clean”. |
| 1987 | The efficiency of individual clean room was improved applying zones of high level cleanliness to adapt different degrees of cleanliness according to the location and need. |
| 1980s-1990s | The Clean Room technology become of interest for food manufacturers. |
| 1991 | An helmet system to be used in the medical field was patented. The user is protected from contaminated air in the environment while the patient is protected from contaminated air being exhausted from the user’s helmet. |
| 1998-1999 | The German Clean Room Consulting introduced the clean room filter fan unit: filter, ventilator, motor directly into the ceiling. |
| 2003 | Eli Lilly presented a new system to prevent cross contamination during the manufacture of pharma powders using a “fog cart” , fine fog of water on exit from a critical area, virtually eliminating the risk of transferring dust traces beyond the proper confines. |
| 2009 | The University of Southampton in UK presented a new system for nanofabrication facilities |
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