The case for a clean room or a clean box

As part of improving our customer service and overall quality, we are in the final stages of completing a clean box.

An increasing number of our customers require items bearing little contaminants. And that extends to how we ship the pieces to them. There is no point in manufacturing a finished product that has the least amount of contaminants when all that “cleanliness” will be lost during the preparation for shipping.

Needless to say that investing in the construction of an actual clean room would have been quite onerous, and there isn’t enough demand to justify the expenditure. On the other hand, a clean box was a good compromise.

Controlling the concentration of airborne particles is the challenge.  A Clean room, as in the case of class 100, for example, aims at limiting the contaminants to 100 particles per cubic foot of air. Particles that are 0.5 microns or larger. It is important to note that clean rooms or clean boxes are not sterile. Their job is to get rid of airborne particles.

The heart of the matter is the HEPA filter. Look at the size of the filter on our box. Impressive. It should push out those nasty contaminants like nobody’s business.

To complement the clean box, we will be using clean room 100 poly tubing for vacuum sealing the items. The poly tubing is certified by the Degage Corporation.

Of course, coming up with our clean box is nowhere near as challenging as separating the Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) from background, as Frank Calaprice, Professor of Physics at Princeton University, would say. In this case, background is the noise signal caused by high-energy cosmic rays at the Earth’s surface. Frank co-leads a team searching for particles of dark matter, which he won’t find in our clean box.

It is acknowledged that what we actually see in the universe only accounts for 4% of matter. Another 73% is dark energy, and the balance of 23% is dark matter. Understanding the universe is Frank’s business. To provide Professor Calaprice with some tools needed for his experiments, such as carbon coated Quartz ampoules, capsules and probes is our business. Who knows? Supplying him and his team with lab ware free of contaminants may help untangle the secrets of the universe.

We like it. And we know you will like our carbon coated Quartz ampoules.

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