What Goes Into Making an
ISO Clean Room?

What goes into making an ISO clean room? First, it is important to understand how ISO clean room classifications work. Nearly 90% of clean rooms are positive-pressure rooms that are categorized according to ISO 14644-1 clean room classifications. Clean rooms are classified according to the concentration of airborne particles inside them and the size of those particles — the goal being to reduce the number and size of the particles through ongoing pressurization and venting.

Positive-pressure clean rooms are designed to help aerospace, aviation, and other industrial and manufacturing operations protect products and processes from external airborne contaminants. With positive pressure, cleaned air is forced in, and contaminants are ejected. This is in contrast to negative-pressure rooms, which are designed to trap contaminants in the room, such as biohazards that you do not want to escape from a controlled environment.

This process is more complex than it sounds, especially when it comes to meeting ISO clean room standards. Requirements for a specific grade of clean room depend on the application, and range from ISO Class 9 (the least strict) to ISO Class 1 clean room (the most stringent).

It requires multiple types of technology, customization, and expertise to create an ISO clean room environment. This includes extracting all contaminated air from the workspace and replacing it with clean, filtered air. Fortunately, Duroair™ has well over a decade of experience customizing industrial containment solutions that do just that.

In this blog, we will look at how Duroair combines state-of-the-art industrial air filtration, patented airflow technology, and customized enclosures to uphold the toughest clean room standards for manufacturing, MRO, and assembly environments.

1: Multi-layer HEPA Filtration for an ISO Clean Room Environment

One way Duroair creates an ISO clean room environment is by passing the air through multiple layers of filtration. The more often the air passes through the filters, the fewer airborne particles are left in the room. We do this with our breakthrough multi-layer filtration technology.

Here’s what essentially happens inside an industrial clean room: Fans blow air in through High-Efficiency Particulate Arrestor (HEPA) or Ultra Low Penetration Air (ULPA) filters that capture almost all particulates.

Extracting air at a lower rate than it's blown in creates a positive pressure environment. This stops air entering from outside, through either doors or cracks in the structure.

It is important to note that industrial filtration alone will not achieve ISO clean room standards. Air flow (ACH) and pressurization must work together with multiple layers of filtration to create an ISO-classified clean-air environment.

2: The Right Airflow Is Key to Achieving Clean Room Standards

The right airflow is crucial to achieving ISO clean room requirements. There are two common approaches to clean room airflow: Laminar flow and turbulent flow. A laminar flow system, often called a unidirectional airflow clean room, is configured to keep air moving in a single direction. Typically, this is from ceiling to floor, although cross-draft (side-to-side) systems are used in certain applications.

However, laminar flow clean rooms need a large area of filters on the inlet side to achieve proper airflow. This can drive up both the initial expense and the cost of filter replacement.

With turbulent air flow, the air flows in a highly random motion. This is intended to dislodge particulates and encourage their movement towards the exhaust outlets. One advantage of this approach is that it needs a smaller area of filters than laminar flow.

Unfortunately, turbulent or laminar flows (or even a hybrid of the two) may not be sufficient to achieve strict ISO clean room standards for aerospace or other industrial manufacturing environments. For larger workpieces, you need a higher volume of air.

Fortunately, Duroair can customize a clean-air solution to accommodate larger workpieces, with optimal air flow and pressurization that works with multiple filtration layers to achieve a clean room environment.

3: Flexible Clean Room Containment for Meeting ISO Requirements

To meet your ISO clean room requirements, it is important to be able to effectively isolate and contain MRO processes from dust and other particulates. But more traditional permanent clean rooms don’t have the modularity or flexibility to accommodate high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) manufacturing, such as aerospace and aviation assemblies.

This is why Duroair created retractable and fixed, soft-walled enclosures, along with modular hard-walled enclosures, that are customizable for more agile and efficient manufacturing and maintenance workflows. These include ISO clean rooms for assemblies or soft-walled portable/retractable booths that can accommodate workpieces that need crane access. Each clean-air enclosure works with Duroair vented and non-vented air filtration technology to accommodate a wide range of MRO workflows while meeting ISO Class clean room requirements.

Here are a couple of examples of Duroair’s agile, clean-air enclosures.

• DuroRoom™ Hardwall: Fixed clean rooms are frequently used for controlled environments for MRO, but many traditional clean rooms lack the flexibility to be modified for changing workflows. This is why we developed the modular DuroRoom Hardwall enclosure. It’s designed for the hazard containment you need to protect people and processes for large-capacity manufacturing and assemblies. Unlike prefab clean rooms, each DuroRoom Hardwall is completely reconfigurable without sacrificing the durability of a permanent enclosure.
• DuroRoom™ Softwall: While there are many advantages to hardwall workstations for MRO hazard containment, you may need a portable controlled environment for sudden changes in job schedules and materials. Fixed workstations are also not ideal if they need to be accessible by overhead cranes. Fortunately, the DuroRoom Softwall enclosure is available as a portable solution. It retracts to 20% of its extended length to accommodate overhead cranes and to save space when not in use.

The DuroRoom Softwall enclosure is also available as a fixed workspace. Both the softwall and hardwall DuroRoom enclosures can be customized with multiple rooms within each enclosure to accommodate multiple ISO levels.

Let Duroair Help You Meet Your ISO Clean Room and Productivity Requirements

What happens when you combine multi-layer air filtration with a customized retractable enclosure? You get a flexible, industrial containment solution that accommodates MRO workflows while meeting your ISO clean room requirements.

Contact us to learn how we can customize a clean-air solution, such as an ISO clean room, that is better for compliance, for overall employee health and safety, and for your bottom line.