What are cleanrooms for plastic injection?
To talk about plastic injection in San Antonio is to talk about a world of processes where the polymers or resins need to be processed with a guaranteed safety level and without risks in their operativity.
The guarantee is marked by the certifications that your plastic injection partner has, which are obtained by the demand of areas where all the processes are developed with the necessary control to accomplish results without any alteration.
One of these locations is called cleanroom, where the operations of plastic injection molding in San Antonio, and around the world, occur.
That is why today we will talk about them, what they are and what are the main characteristics they must have to ensure the strict but necessary levels of satisfaction.
What are the cleanrooms?
Cleanrooms are spaces thought and designed to accomplish zero contamination levels, eliminating particles from the outside and facilitating their detection through a strictly controlled environment implementation.
They are used for several reasons, mainly applied in tasks related to diverse industries such as pharmaceutical, hospital, or veterinary industry, as in research or control laboratories.
The classification of cleanrooms is based on the number of particles in the air, with ISO 1 cleanroom being the most stringent, up to ISO 9.
What environmental controls must the plastic injection molding cleanroom comply with?
Plastic injection molding cleanrooms ensure all processes, not only from injection molding itself but also from resin handling to parts packaging.
Depending on the nature of produced pieces, the sanitary registration must be up to date, which will be different if they are medical parts made by plastic injection, or products with sanitary or food applications, for example.
1.- Space control
Cleanrooms must have walls with a vinyl coating that does not allow the adhesion of any contaminant.
Likewise, the walls must have rounded corners in order not to harbor agents that could contaminate elements of the operation or the process itself.
2.- Air control
One of the essential cleanroom controls is the air control of the plastic injection molding cleanroom to ensure that it is sterile, i.e., free of microorganisms or particulate matter.
Air control can be based on closed-loop systems or open systems. Most of these systems have a HEPA air filter (High-Efficiency Particle Arresting) specially designed to create a barrier that stops the passage of any contaminants like irritant allergens, spores, microbes, dust, and many other agents.
You can find this type of high-efficiency filter in hospitals, airplanes, laboratories, and some specialized manufacturing centers for plastic injection molding.
3.- Operator control
Cleanroom workers always need to wear special suits that don’t allow any contamination nor generate dust particles or other contaminant microorganisms.
4.- Pressure control
The pressure of the cleanroom is higher than that of the outside to prevent air from entering from the outside when opening the doors, thus causing the presence of microorganisms that are harmful to the plastic injection process and its safety.
These four controls allow a total guarantee and supervision of what happens in the cleanroom, with the transcendental presence of the airlocks that enable air filtering and adequate pressure.
At the same time, there is also a system of filters that guarantees the absence of particles in the air since it is the number of particles that will determine the level of “cleanliness” in the area.
ISO classification of cleanroom
According to ISO 14644-1 protocols established by the International Organization for Standardization in the United States and Canada, the number and size of particles in the air per cubic meter determine the cleanliness level of a cleanroom.
This classification is divided into the following categories: ISO 1, ISO 2, ISO 3, ISO 4, ISO 5, ISO 6, ISO 7, ISO 8, and ISO 9. ISO 1 is the highest purity standard. The cleanliness level used in industries specializing in plastic injection molding is ISO 7.
However, it should be noted that even class 9 of this classification has higher cleanliness levels than any other area.
5.- Level of temperature
On the other hand, the temperature in a cleanroom for plastic injection molding should be +/- 0.5 degrees. Finally, cleanrooms for plastic injection must have electrostatic and fire protection.
As we can see, plastic injection molding in San Antonio obeys worldwide certification controls that must be guaranteed at all times and under all circumstances.
That’s why the infrastructure and equipment of plastic injection molding experts in San Antonio and the world support your production operations.
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