What are the latest developments in the clean rooms industry?

There are various changes which happened in last few years in the cleanroom industry. Here we will speak about two aspects; Partitions and cleanroom equipments.

The major development in clean-room partitions industry in the past few years is the rise in demand of customization of design/ size/ accessories and increased emphasis on quality and final finish. Moreover, now the focus is also on higher efficiency, energy savings, sustainability, and functionality. Furthermore, Due to increase in manufacturing demand of critical pharmaceutical, hormonal and biotech products, most of the up-coming projects are more complex and critical in nature. This has given thrust to the need of customization of designs as per the need and also to the introduction of newer materials for construction of cleanrooms.

The use of GRP (Glass Reinforced Polymer) in cleanroom construction is a good example of change in material of construction for critical operations. This material provides excellent chemical resistance, scratch resistance, impact resistance and many other features like possibility of bigger return-air risers, service panels etc. etc., which makes it perfect choice for critical product manufacturing requiring heavy fumigation and cleaning with harsh reagents.

Another change is the increasing need for the customized design and pre-engineered partitions. Today Powder coated panels with integration of all utilities within panels are in demand. A big advantage of powder-coated panels is; all cut-outs for lights, diffusers, HEPA boxes, light switches, in-built return-air risers etc. is done in factory on CNC machines and channels are internally welded before painting (Powder-coating). This gives an advantage of better strength, non-exposure of infill and better final finishing. Another big advantage of powder coating is; better scratch resistance, chemical resistance and control of gloss level and same coloured accessories like covings, corners etc. for better aesthetics.

Few years back the cleanroom projects were done using normal progressive type pre-painted partitions, which are actually general purpose partitions and all cut-outs etc. was done at site manually. Even conduits are put at site. This was leading to longer installation periods, inferior final finishing and lesser impact/ scratch resistance of panels due to lower thickness of coating on panels.

The other major change in cleamroom industry is of cleanroom Equipments. The clean room equipments that provide solutions to contamination potentials and maximize usable space are in great demand. Coved surfaces, flushed/ smooth component transitions and smooth final finish of the equipments is also one of the major changes in product’s design.

Another major change in cleanroom equipments industry is the containment solutions (Isolator technology). An isolator; it is a device that provides a physical barrier between a Laboratory technician and a work process. This barrier is necessary to avoid any contamination happening to the product or human, which may result by human coming in contact with the product. 

Day by day Isolators are becoming a major part of equipments in pharmaceutical industries manufacturing critical nature of pharmaceutical products i.e. hormones, oncology etc. These products have critical effects over the human and vice versa hence a strong barrier is required to avoid any type of contamination. Another advantage of this technology is that it is used for maintaining the required cleanliness class and conditions in a small area instead of maintaining the same cleanliness class and conditions in the whole manufacturing area, so it in turn reduces the HVAC and other running costs drastically.

GMP has grabbed this opportunity and has already started manufacturing isolators in its new state of the art manufacturing facility near Mumbai. This manufacturing facility houses the latest laser cutting machine (Trumph make True Fibre Laser 1030) and all other machines are also CNC controlled and are latest in terms of technology.