Clean room textiles

Introduction
• A cleanroom is a facility ordinarily utilized as a part of specialized
industrial production or scientific research.

• Cleanrooms are designed to maintain extremely low levels of

particulates, such as dust, airborne organisms, or vaporized particles.

• Cleanrooms typically have a cleanliness level quantified by the number

of particles per cubic meter at a predetermined molecule measure.

• The ambient outdoor air in a typical urban area contains 35,000,000

particles for each cubic meter in the size range 0.5 μm and bigger in
measurement.
 Places needing clean room textiles
• Semiconductor manufacturing 

• Solar panel 

• Rechargeable battery

• LED, LCD and OLED display manufacturing, 

• Biotechnology

• Life sciences
 Function of clean room textiles
• Clean room or anti contaminant textiles protect the environment from the wearer.

• The human body sheds one billion skin cells everyday.

• The body & its clothing also carry a good amount of dust, ions, hair, textile lint,
cosmetic, perfume & smoke, all of which are incompatible with high-tech
production methods.

• Clean room items are used in clean rooms to keep the atmosphere clean and
prevent the contamination of items in the room which may be food,
pharmaceuticals, microelectronics, aerospace components optics & automotive
components.

• Each market has its own requirements regarding fabric contaminant capability.
• Anti contaminant textiles should protect the wearer from hazardous
materials in the clean room as well.

• Exposure to high purity pharmaceuticals or the solvents used in the

semiconductor industry, for example can be harmful to a worker.

• Clean room textiles should be lint-free, antistatic & resistant to

human contamination such as hair or dead skin.
 Classification
• Cleanrooms are classified according to ISO 14644-1.

• This ISO standard classifies cleanrooms in terms of airborne particle

concentrations of particles in the size range of 0.1 to 5 micrometers
(μm).

• Table 1 shows the ISO cleanroom classifications and maximum

airborne particle concentration limits.
An ISO Class 1 cleanroom is the cleanest environment while a Class 9 cleanroom is the least clean of the ISO cleanroom
classes.
Clean room classification & required garment types
• There are various garment types for clean rooms, as recommended by
the Institute of Environmental Services (IES).

• The lower the number associated with the class, cleaner the
environment.

• A class 100, 000 room usually requires a hat or hood with full hair
cover, coveralls or zippered frock, foot wear and gloves (100, 000
represents the number of 1µ diameter or larger particles per 1 cubic
feet of air).

• Facilities rated higher than this class are not considered clean rooms.
• For Class 10, 000 rooms, a hoop replaces the hat from the class
100,000 ensemble.

• Class 1000 rooms require full coveralls in place of a zippered frock.

• A Class 100 environment requires full facial cover.

• A Class 10 environment necessitates a complete facial enclosure.

 Fabrics for clean rooms
• Woven, Nonwoven & Laminate fabrics are used in clean room
environments.

• The fabrics used to make clean room are designed to contain particles
as small as 0.2 or less in diameter.
• Woven fabrics are made of continuous multifilament yarns.

• Fabrics made of staple and natural yarns are seldom used in clean room
applications because of excess amount of lint they generate.

• Important characteristics of woven fabrics for clean room applications are

containment (filtration) efficiency, air permeability, moisture vapor
transmission rate, abrasion resistance and static decay problems.

• The typical air permeability range is 1-45 cfm and typical filtration efficiency
can vary from 15% to 60% for particles measuring 0.3 to 0.5µ.

• Woven fabrics can also be used to control electrostatic discharge.

• Continuous filament polyester is widely used in woven anti contaminant
garments.

• These garments can readily be sterilized through gamma radiation.

• Other major materials are Tyvek coated an laminated fabrics such as Gore-
Tex, and inherently anti static fabrics.

• It is easy to sterilize and has excellent particle containment properties.

• Another material for clean room application is Kleenguard from Kimberly-

Clark, which is a spun bond/meltblown/spunbond heat-fused laminate.
• Conductive yarns such as carbon, nickel or aluminum can be woven
into clean room fabrics for static control which is required in
semiconductor & microchip manufacturing.

• These fabrics also prevent sparks in flammable environments.

• Bicomponent fibers with a conductive core can provide the required

antistatic properties in the fabric.

• Chemical protection ability of the garment is also important.

• During fabrication of clean room garments, loose fabric edges, holes, gaps and
other means by which particles could escape into the air from the wearer or
garment must be avoided.

• Cut edges should be preserged or burned and turned under then lock stitched or
bound and sealed.

• Particles entrapment regions such as pockets, belts, pleats, fold-over collars or

cuffs, emblems, logos and pen-tabs should be avoided.

• Neckline and collar should be overedged before setting.

• Clean room garments are sewn using low-texture, continuous filament sewing
threads. Some companies use ultrasonically bonded seams to eliminate the
“blow through” associated with needle holes.
 Assessment of clean room clothing
• Particle monitoring in Helmke drums provides a method of achieving
cleanliness certification for fabric items like wipers and cleanroom
garments.

• The particle counter installation is simple and easy to operate for this
application.

• This method aims to quantify the number of particles “dislodged

from a garment through the application of mechanical energy under
dry conditions as a means of simulating particle shedding from the
surface of the garment.”
• The procedure involves “placing the test material into a stainless steel drum”
which is rotated at a rate of 10 rpm, connected to a sampling tube which is
connected to an automatic laser particle counter.

• Particle counts are recorded at one minute intervals for a period of 10 minutes.

• The number of counts per minute for each particle channel (0.3, 0.5, 1.0 and 5.0
μm) is reported (after the subtraction of the background counts).

• These results are used to determine average particle emission rates the test
procedures described in IEST Recommended Practice RP-CC003.3: Garment
System Considerations for Cleanrooms and Other Controlled Environments
• IEST-RP-CC003.3 defines a cleanliness classification system which is
summarized in Table 2 below.

• The classification system is based on the Helmke Drum Test. The table lists
acceptable particle emission rates (particles/min) for each category based on a
medium size coverall (average area for both sides of 5.99 m2).

• Category I garments have the lowest particle shed requirements and are the
“cleanest.”
The Lasair III Particle Counter
Helmke drum’s mechanical tumbling process
• A standard method to test fabrics for particle shedding requires particle
monitoring in a Helmke drum.

• Through the Helmke drum’s mechanical tumbling process, particles

release from wipers and garments.

• Particle monitoring during this tumbling provides data on the cleaning

process and fabric deterioration.

• Specifications around particle monitoring and particle level classification

are described in the Institute of Environmental Sciences and
Technologies (IEST) Recommended Practices
• IEST-RP-CC003: Garment Systems Considerations for Cleanrooms
and other Controlled Environments

• IEST-RP-CC003.4 describes methods for particle shed analysis in

Helmke Drum applications

• IEST-RP-CC004.3: Evaluating Wiping Materials used in Cleanrooms

and other Controlled Environments
End of the lecture