How Different Industries Are Using Cleanroom Technology
Cleanrooms are becoming more and more commonplace in our everyday lives. In fact, they were once a rare sight to be seen. Today, the cleanroom industry is booming. According to a market analysis by Grand View Research, the global cleanrooms market is expected to reach $5 billion by 2028.
Cleanrooms provide a way for manufacturers to create products that are purer than ever before, making them essential for many industries across the globe. Let’s look at some of these industries and how they use cleanroom technology.
An Overview of the Cleanrooms Technology
Cleanrooms are used in a variety of industries. The primary purpose of a cleanroom is to maintain the quality of products and reduce risks associated with contamination. Contamination can lead to health hazards for the consumers who use your products.
The food industry usually faces problems with contamination. However, even pharmaceutical and other industries can face contamination challenges while manufacturing their products. In fact, FDA has recently warned pharma manufacturers of benzene contamination in some drugs.
In addition, cleanrooms help improve product quality by reducing or eliminating cross-contamination and isolating specific processes from other processes. For example, a pharmaceutical company may use a cleanroom to separate its manufacturing and packaging areas.
This will prevent any microorganisms introduced into the packaging area from being transferred back into the manufacturing area after packaging, thereby avoiding possible contamination during production.
Industries Using Cleanroom Technology
While there are many, here are some industries using cleanroom technology.
Pharmaceutical
Pharmaceutical companies are using cleanrooms to produce their products. Most pharmaceuticals are made from biological materials, and these drugs must be produced in a controlled environment without contamination. Cleanrooms are ideal for this purpose because they offer a clean, controlled environment that the manufacturer can monitor at all times.
Cleanrooms also have many applications beyond just manufacturing drugs. For example, they’re used in medical devices such as pacemakers and stents. These types of technologies require sterile conditions to work correctly. If not manufactured in cleanrooms, they would become contaminated during manufacturing and could stop working properly once implanted inside the body.
Pharmaceutical cleanrooms have become a necessity for drug development. Hence, many people are installing pharmaceutical cleanrooms. According to a report by Pharma Manufacturing, around 8,000 ISO 5 to ISO 9 biopharmaceutical cleanrooms are currently in use.
There are 9 ISO classifications. However, ISO 7 and ISO 8 are the most used cleanrooms for pharmaceutical manufacturing. ISO 8 cleanrooms allow 3,520,000 particles > 0.5 microns per cubic meter. This particle limit is ideal for use in the pharmaceutical industry.
You can read more about ISO 8 cleanroom classifications for help with using one. Once you know the details of the environment that ISO 8 cleanrooms offer, you will be better positioned to control and manage the environment for your benefit.
Manufacturing
Cleanrooms are used in manufacturing. Manufacturing is a large part of the economy, and as such, it also makes up a large part of the cleanroom market. Cleanrooms are becoming more common in manufacturing because they can help reduce costs and increase efficiency by reducing contamination and improving quality control.
Cleanrooms are used for both physical production and research-and-development (R&D) processes that require controlled environments to ensure product reliability through reduced risk of failure due to contamination or human error.
Electronics
The electronics industry is one of the most prevalent users of cleanrooms. A cleanroom is a defined environment that minimizes particulate, airborne, and surface contamination. The purpose of a cleanroom is to protect sensitive electronic components from damage caused by contaminants such as dust and dirt or even human skin cells from fingerprints on touch-screen devices.
If you’re working in an electronics manufacturing facility, it’s essential that your tools are kept in optimal condition so that no harm comes to them or their performance.
Cleanrooms can also be used for other purposes within the electronics industry, such as preventing contamination in areas where food products are produced, such as factories producing cheese, or for use in areas where there may be potential biohazards, like hospitals or laboratories.
A major part of electronics developed in cleanrooms is a semiconductor. Semiconductors are required in almost every electronic device. The research firm McKinsey predicts the global semiconductor market to be a trillion-dollar economy by 2030. This means that the need for cleanrooms will also accelerate along with the need for semiconductors.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a growing industry, and pharmaceuticals and vaccines must be produced in a clean environment. Cleanrooms create an environment where biotechnology companies can manufacture medical devices, medical equipment, and pharmaceuticals without contamination from foreign organisms or particles.
Cleanrooms allow large-scale production of medicines that would otherwise be unsafe to produce at large scales due to the risk of contamination. For example, pharmaceuticals such as insulin need specific conditions when produced, such as:
- There must be no contaminants present on surfaces throughout the manufacturing
- All equipment must be sterilized
- Air flows through filters designed specifically for each room’s needs
- Workers wear sterile outfits when entering any area where products are being made, and so on.
The Future of Cleanrooms
As the cleanroom market grows, it will only become more common worldwide. The demand for cleanrooms is rising, and industry leaders are finding new ways to use them.
Cleanrooms have come a long way since they first became popular in the 1960s as part of NASA’s Apollo moon program. Since then, they’ve been used in many ways to improve efficiency and productivity in pharmaceuticals, electronics manufacturing, and food processing.
Their versatility means that they can be adapted to fit any situation where there’s a need for sterile conditions. As technology improves, their usefulness will continue to increase beyond just those three areas currently being pursued today by manufacturers who want to stay ahead of their competition by embracing new technologies fast enough so as not to get left behind by newer models coming out next year or even next month.
Conclusion
We have seen some of how cleanrooms have become a part of everyday life. It’s not just big companies like Apple and Samsung that use them. Many small businesses are also finding cleanroom technology useful for their operations. In addition, different types of cleanrooms can be used by different industries depending on their needs. It’s exciting to see how this technology has grown over time and will continue to be used as time goes on.