PLASMA TO THE RESCUE

摘要

Advanced production sites need to avoid contamination due to particles, and hence, there is a need for rooms where particles are reduced to a very low level so that production processes are not contaminated. Particles can be inert, chemical or biological. The size of the particles can vary from the thickness of a human hair at 50 microns down to the size of a piece of DNA; several thousand times smaller. Chemically active compounds can alter the nature of a material or pollute highly pure products. Naturally, chemical and biologically active particles are a problem in medical devices. The obvious solution is to strip the air in the room of its normal contents using highly efficient air filters. The process can include a method to kill biological components. In principle, this should leave the environment clean and avoid contamination of equipment, processes and products. But, equipment, processes and products generate particles, thus the filtering system needs to recirculate the air at a rate that continually removes newly created particles.