One of the most difficult things about cleaning a cleanroom is that you are cleaning microbial particles that are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and therefore, the methods that you use to clean the room must be comprehensive and effective at getting the job done. It’s one thing to clean a moldy shower or dirty floor at home, where you can easily see exactly where you’ve scrubbed off all the dirt, but it’s quite a different thing to clean what looks like a sparkling clean, stainless steel surface and get it cleaner than it was before.

Of all the areas in your cleanroom, the critical zone is the part that you’ll clean the most. In the classic textbook, Cleanroom Technology, William Whyte defines the critical zone as “the production area where the product is open and exposed to contamination.” This may be the unidirectional airflow workstation, for instance. Most cleanroom policies call for this zone to be cleaned continuously throughout the day. Therefore, this is the part of your cleanroom where you have to devote the most time, energy, and resources to cleaning in order to minimize the risk of contaminating the product.

However, there is nothing worse than following your procedures to a ‘T’ and then sampling the area, only to find that all your efforts counted for nothing and you didn’t actually remove a sufficient quantity of contaminants, fibers, or microorganisms from the area. It’s difficult to clean what you can’t see, and in order to ensure that the job meets the required standards, it only makes sense to do the job with the right products and the right method.

The right products

In order to clean your critical zone, you’ll need a container with solution, a wiper, and deionized or distilled water. Our customers especially love the TX 1009 cleanroom wipers for this job, as they can easily be folded into quarters that are the right size for wiping. You should also check out Texwipe’s Isopropyl Alcohol solution for this job.

The right method

Follow this tested and proven method to clean the surfaces in your critical zone.

• Fold the wiper into quarters. When you fold the wiper into quarters, you will create four equal clean surfaces that you can use for wiping.
• Dampen the wiper with the solution.
• Wipe the surface with overlapping passes, wiping in a consistent direction, starting in the area farthest from your body and moving towards your body. Using overlapping passes is the surest way to make sure that you are cleaning the entire area.
• Refold the wiper, return to the wiped surface, and wipe or dry the surface. If your procedures require it, wipe at a 90-degree angle to the direction you first wiped.
• (Optional) - Wipe with clean water

Repeat as often as necessary. The frequency of your cleaning will depend on the activities you conduct in the critical area of your cleanroom and how quickly contaminants accumulate to a critical level.

SOS Cleanroom is your one-stop shopping source for all the cleanroom supplies that you will need. Count on us for all your cleanroom wipers, swabs, solutions, apparel, and more. Place your order today!