Category Archives: Knowledge Base

Aseptic Cleaning, Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 7 – How Clean is Clean For Pharmaceutical Companies?

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
11
Feb

Let’s focus on one of the most challenging cleaning requirements for the pharmaceutical industry – cleaning equipment used to manufacture injectable materials – so called “parenteral drugs”. These materials must be made in environments that are absolutely clean and sterile, because there is no opportunity for the drugs to be sterilized after packaging – i.e. [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 6 – How Clean is Clean?

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
particles_on_surfaces_part_6
04
Feb

The surfaces have been wiped and the obvious question is:  How clean are they? Start with what you see. Do the surfaces look visibly clean?  If not, the wiping activity is not yet done. Wipe to the absence of visible soil on both the surface and the wiper. Keep wiping until the last wiper shows [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 5 – Cleaning Floors and Walls

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
particles_on_surfaces_part_5
28
Jan

In a cleanroom, cleaning floors and walls is like cleaning other surfaces, only more so – larger surface areas and corresponding larger wiping cloths. Let’s start with floors. The same principles apply to wiping floors as described previously in Particles on Surfaces Part 4 – use linear wiping strokes and wipe from clean to dirty. To achieve [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 4 – Optimum Wiping Techniques

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
particles_on_surfaces_part_4
21
Jan

Before we address wiping techniques, we might well question the need for wiping. After all, if capillary forces hold particles to surfaces strongly enough that the particles can’t easily get airborne, why the great concern to remove the particles by wiping? The simple answer is embodied in two words:  Contact Transfer. That’s the means by which [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 3 – Cleanroom Wiper + IPA

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
12
Jan

In Particles on Surfaces – Part 2, we learned that thin liquid layers between particles and surfaces serve as the binding forces between the two. By lowering the surface tension of this liquid layer – typically water – we can decrease the binding force and assist in the removal of particles. Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) – as [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 2 – The Ties That Bind

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
01
Jan

In Particles on Surfaces – Part 1, witness wafer and settling plate data showed that particles and bacteria (i.e. viable particles) will settle on cleanroom surfaces. From this we can infer that particles do NOT behave as hard microscopic billiard balls, striking surfaces and rebounding into the air. Rather, through inelastic collisions with the surface, they [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Particles on Surfaces: Part 1 – Next to Godliness

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
particles_on_surfaces_part_1
15
Dec

Surely cleanrooms qualify. Air filtered everywhere. Operators garbed from head to foot with only a portion of their faces exposed.  Spotless stainless steel and plastic surfaces everywhere. No paper or cardboard anywhere. Manufactured product protected. Surely this is cleanliness next to Godliness. Appearances are deceiving. Despite the advances made in the High Efficiency Particle Air [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Things You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know About Lint-Free Wipes

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
28
May

A recent search on Google for the term lint-free wipe returned over 18 million results. A further refinement to “lint-free wipes” returned over 330,000 results. And another search for “lint free wiper” produced over 1.5 million results. A simple change in characters or adding a letter churned out different results. The one thing they have [Read More…]

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Berkshire Products, Knowledge Base

Powder Coating: Surface Preparation Solutions

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
powder_coating_wipers
28
May

The Customer An aluminum wheel manufacturer is currently using Choice® SuperSorb 12×12″ (30x30cm) disposable wipes for their powder coating applications. The Applications Oil, aluminum oxide and other contaminants in the pre-treatment (surface preparation) process can adversely affect the quality of the final product. Wiping down the bare metal after cleaning and prior to coating will [Read More…]

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Cleaning & Disinfection, Knowledge Base

Proper Cleanroom Wiper Folding & Surface Cleaning Poster

Posted on by Berkshire Corporation
cleanroom_wiper_folding
28
Apr

DOWNLOAD POSTER: An updated guide to properly folding and utilizing a low-linting wiper for maximum cleaning efficiency in a cleanroom, controlled or critical environment.

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