The chemical industry is one of the sectors with the highest demand for laboratory cleanrooms. The safety measures required involve maintaining standards of cleanliness and biosafety both within the cleanroom and in the wider laboratory. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about cleanrooms in chemical laboratories.
The chemical industry, which processes raw materials, both natural and synthetic, to transform them into different products to meet human needs, exceeded €60 billion in revenue in 2017. Growth in international demand and the drop in oil prices are just some of the reasons that have contributed to this positive trend, to the point that this sector is the second largest exporter in the Spanish economy.
This growth has also led to the chemical industry being one of the sectors with the highest demand for cleanrooms due to the stringent safety standards required for its processes, particularly in laboratories.
The concept of a cleanroom is directly linked to the chemical industry and arises from the need for a space where product processing can take place, quality can be guaranteed, and cross-contamination between products—microbial, from operator handling, and any other external contamination—can be prevented.
Given the safety measures in laboratories, it is essential to have a space that guarantees a sterile environment. In a laboratory cleanroom, particle concentration is controlled, and both its design and use are geared towards minimizing the introduction, retention, and even generation of particles within it. Other factors, such as humidity, temperature, and differential pressure between the room and the outside or adjacent areas, are also regulated with absolute precision to ensure the laboratory's cleanliness.
Cleanroom standards are outlined in ISO 14644, which specifies the requirements for air cleanliness in cleanrooms. Furthermore, good manufacturing practices, designed to guarantee quality, must also be followed.
Basically, a cleanroom for a chemical laboratory is a clean room where production and processing activities related to the chemical industry or the manufacture of chemical products take place. As such, they must be equipped to handle products correctly and ensure safety.
The cleaning protocol for a cleanroom depends on the person in charge. However, it is recommended to start from the dirtiest areas and work your way to the cleanest, using specific cleaning products and equipment, taking care to ensure they are not harmful or contaminating.
Although there are specific standards and requirements that must be met in all cleanrooms, there are also specific standards for the chemical sector that must be met to ensure the safety of both operators and third parties, so it is important to know them in order to design the cleanroom accordingly.
