APPLICATION REPORT | CLEAN ROOMS


R Two 10-ton Zinter Handling overhead bridge cranes in use at the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute. SUNY Poly’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering uses these cranes to service an EUV research tool.


for what constitutes a clean room hoist. This means the quality and safety managers at the client company are responsible for establishing their own requirements for hoist design and use. “The first challenge with custom- engineered equipment, apart from ensuring quality and safety requirements are front and centre, is overcoming a price objection from the customer,” Downing says. “It’s a challenge because we bid on a lot of projects in the food and pharmaceutical markets that require both spark-resistant and corrosion-resistant equipment. But ultimately, if quality and safety are involved, they take precedent over price.”


VOLUNTARY PRODUCTION STANDARDS While there is no universal standard that clean room hoist equipment is required to meet by any particular law, the International Organization for Standardization in Geneva, Switzerland, has a list of voluntary standards that could include clean room hoists depending on the application in question. Gayle McCann, marketing communications and project manager for William Hackett Lifting Products in Alnwick, Northumberland, UK, says clean room hoists are typically covered by ISO 14644, which specifies air purity classifications depending on various levels of airborne particle concentration, and other related standards. However, the end- user application will influence which ISO standard applies.


“The standards are typically divided


into live science and chemical,” McCann says. “Live science would include particle emission, chemical resistance, bio growth, cleanability, antibacterial, and hydrogen peroxide reactivity. Chemical would include particle emission and degassing.” The clean rooms themselves are also subject to ISO classification, with clean room levels ranging from ISO 1 to ISO 9. According to Pegasus Clean, a San Diego, CA, USA cleaning services company that serves the clean room industry, ISO class 1 clean rooms must have a room air exchange rate of 500 to 750 changes per hour. These clean rooms must also test below 12 particles per cubic metre. ISO 1 is the strictest ISO standard of cleanliness for clean rooms; ISO 1 clean rooms are most often used in the life sciences, nanotechnology, and aerospace industries. The European Space Agency’s microbiology laboratory in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, houses an ISO 1 clean room that is used for Planetary Protection procedures; these procedures are designed to prevent cross-contamination between planets when astronauts take organic matter onboard a space flight or return to earth with organic material samples. McCann notes that while clean room equipment has traditionally been used


P A Zinter Handling E Hoist designed for a pharmaceutical company in Mexico. The hoist is rated for an ISO 5 environment and was installed in 2018.


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in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted other industries to adopt clean rooms as well: “Due to the growing need for safe bulk


manufacturing of foodstuffs, beverages, and cosmetics, many process steps including injection moulding of preforms and plastic packages are conducted in lower level clean rooms.” The semiconductor industry is driving


much of the demand for new clean rooms. Thomas Christensen, VP, Design for Emmett, Idaho, USA-based Syclone ATTCO, says semiconductor manufacturers are the source of most of the demand for Syclone ATTCO’s clean room solutions. “Most of the other industries are


repair and maintenance environments,” Christensen says. “The equipment, whether


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