[labnetwork] Laundry Machines for Clean Room Suits
Luciani, Vincent (Fed)
Vincent.Luciani at nist.gov
Mon May 14 09:43:45 EDT 2018
Hello Milan,
I initiated a discussion thread about a year ago regarding cleanroom garments. Below, is the summary I made back then. It might save you some leg work.
Eventually, we decided to stay with a commercial service. We conducted extensive market research about the plans and options available and learned that many different plans and options are available and, as usual, "the devil is in the details". We re-competed the contract with detailed provisions stipulating the service we required. Award is pending. Laundering our own was not the answer for us, but is for some. We don't have access to a student body labor pool, nor an ideal spot for the infrastructure.
To All:
By the way, topics like these always come up at the UGIM, especially in the Bootie Camp on Sunday morning. If you have not registered for the UGIM yet, I encourage you to do so here: REGISTER FOR UGIM<https://ugim.nano.upenn.edu/>
Good Luck,
Vince
Vincent K. Luciani
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 6201
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-6201
>From May 18, 2017
Hello All,
Thanks for all the great responses. I very briefly summarized them in the table below.
Lab
Solution
Comments
NIST CNST NanoFab
Laundry service
Cycled weekly, significant problem with replacement cost, about 100 sets/week
University of Louisville
Self-laundered
No significant problems
University of Wisconsin
Self-laundered
Owns their garments laundered in their HEPA filtered washer and dryer
University of CA, Berkeley
Tyvek
User replaces their own regularly
Cornell Nanoscale Facility
Laundry service
Had a problem, reduced inspection criteria to control replacement costs
Draper Labs
Laundry service
60 users. Vendor offered insurance that proved cost effective
University of Delaware
Laundry service
Cycled out every two weeks, also some problems with cost of replacing damaged goods
University of Washington
Laundry service
Had a similar experience to NIST. Switched vendors and it got better.
UCSB Nanofabrication Facility
Laundry service
Large volume. Found better, cheaper service from a local small business instead of the big guys
University of Pennsylvania
Laundry service
Suffering similar experience as NIST. Working with vendor to try to control costs.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Laundry service
Switched to Alltex fiber suits. Just as clean as Gore-Tex
University of Utah
Laundry service
Owns their garments, laundered by contractor every two weeks.
I am not sure what we will do yet as we are trying to negotiate with the vendor. We reduced to the lowest inspection criteria but are still having problems, for example booties with a piece of tape stuck to them pulled as defective, then it takes them 8 weeks to replace it.
We now require all rejected garments be returned to us for inspection. We then inspect all discarded garments ourselves in order to train the vendor on what constitutes a defect. It is a painful process. Disposable garments are in our future until and if we can find a better solution.
Thanks again,
Vince
From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Milan Begliarbekov
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 2:19 PM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: [labnetwork] Laundry Machines for Clean Room Suits
Hi All,
Does anyone have experience with washing / drying their own clean room suits?
Are there good specs out there for the soap, types of washing and drying machines, the requirements for the water to those machines? Also are there some manufacturers for the washing / drying machines that are good for this purpose? Laundry SOP's would also be helpful.
Thank you for the help,
Milan Begliarbekov, Ph.D.
NanoFabrication Manager
CUNY Advanced Science Research Center
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20180514/1b721175/attachment.html>
More information about the labnetwork
mailing list