Comparing features and benefits of cleanroom consumable products is confusing. How do I interpret the test values reported by each company to assure I am getting the right product for my cleanroom application?

Consumable products are necessary for use in a variety of industries such as those working with toxic chemicals, solvents, drugs, or microorganisms. My source of technical information for all products and processes associated with cleanrooms and controlled environments is the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology. The IEST publishes recommended practices, ISO standards, and associated articles in the Journal of the IEST specifically for the contamination control industry. The recommended practices are written by experts participating in the working groups. The working groups bring contamination control industry users, manufacturers, and testing labs together to provide guidance and advances in products, to address issues and/or effects determined during testing, and to confirm that recommended methods are accurate, reproducible, and fair.

Roberta Burrows, IEST Director, states, “The IEST provides an open, non-confidential forum for discussing industry best practices in accordance with 501c regulations. Working group participants share their scientific knowledge and practical experience to develop IEST Recommended Practices in all areas of contamination control. New topics and advancements are continually being addressed in these collaborative efforts. In addition to providing reliable technical guidance, the resulting consensus documents impart the institutional memory to those individuals new to the contamination control industry.”

Recently, four working groups that are responsible for writing recommended practices for consumable products met at the IEST Fall Conference in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

Gordon Ely, Director of Microbiology Operations at WuXi AppTec, Inc. is the chair of the working groups that addresses documentation substrates and swabs. Gordon said, “IEST WG-CC020 (Documentation Substrates) and IEST WG-CC025 (Swabs) are in the process of revising their respective documents. As part of the revision process, it was decided that these documents would be formatted and structured to be similar to the other Recommended Practices for cleanroom consumables, including IEST-RP-CC004, Evaluating Wiping Materials Used in Cleanrooms and Other Controlled Environments. Both working groups are targeting mid 2011 for completing the revision process. Specifically for WG-25, a sub-committee, comprised of swab manufacturers, will review the current test methods and determine if better, more modern methods are available. If not, they will work together to develop new methods, which will undergo round-robin comparison testing and publishing of the results. It is through such cooperative efforts that IEST Recommended Practices are developed and published.”