[labnetwork] Laundry Machines for Clean Room Suits

[Daniel Christensen]

We do our own laundry at the University of Wisconsin.  Our washer and dryer are commercial grade systems with stainless steel drums.  The systems are located in a non-cleanroom space adjacent to the gowning area.  The washing machine is connected to our building's RO water system.  This is NOT our 18M-ohm processing DI water.  The laundry water has been thru the RO system, has a 0.2 micron filter, and a 254nm UV lamp.  It typically is something like 1M-ohm.  The dryer has a 2ft by 2ft HEPA filter on the air intake.  We pay undergraduate students McDonald's wages to move the garments thru laundry.  By far the biggest time requirements is to fold the garments prior to placing them back in the gowning area.  The folding is done on a counter top next to the dryer.  We use a liquid soap without bleach and I'm not sure about other spec's for it.
We don't have any measurement mechanisms in place to monitor the particle count of the garments coming out of the laundry cycle but we have not had any complaints about yield issues.  Drawbacks to this approach are that we have to initially buy the garment and we have to repair the garments (lots of zipper and bootie repairs).

Dan Christensen

From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Milan Begliarbekov
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 1:19 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
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