Basic Introduction to a Clean Room

Clean rooms are classified based on the number and size of particles in the air. It has 1.0×109 particles larger than 0.1 micrometers. The "mock" clean room at the HVCC TEC-SMART building is a class ISO 9 room. This is the same as a normal room, not an ultra-pure environment like a real clean room. However, for demonstration purposes, one must gown up in order to work in this "clean room." The cleanest clean room is a class ISO 1, which has 10 particles greater than 0.1 micrometers. One number increase in ISO level means that there are 10x more small particles than the level below. The normal clean room used in manufacturing is a class ISO 2 or 3.
Clean rooms are normally constructed out of materials that are smooth and free of any pores or other areas that can capture contaminants from the air and release them again. Every surface should be as smooth as possible and easy to clean, as well as able to resist scratches and abrasions.
All air coming into the clean room goes through a filtering system to maintain the positive pressure of the clean room to make sure that any air leaking is leaked out instead of in. In a real clean room, there would be two floors above the clean room to filter air and neutralize toxic chemicals. This filtered air is pumped through the ceiling down through vents in the floor. Under the floor, air is pumped back upstairs. The bottom floor also houses the pumps for water and chemicals, because the pumping process is too dirty to operate in the clean room.