Energy efficiency in cleanrooms and separative devices: ISO 14644-16, outreach article

The ISO 14644 family of cleanroom standards has been at the center of international cleanroom standards development for many years and covers most facets of cleanroom activity and cleanroom types from large ballroom cleanrooms to isolators and clean tunnels. The series is under constant review and is still expanding. Recent documents that have been released concern the quantification of airborne and surface chemical concentrations, nanoparticles and the selection and testing of equipment used within these rooms. However, apart from some misleading information in the original Part 4 design document, questions concerning the energy demands from air purification processing have been overlooked. Nationally, institutions such as the BSI in UK, DIN- VDI in Germany and IEST in the USA have produced limited information on the topic, but Part 16 is the first standard to be internationally agreed upon. The key new features of the standard are a) the preparation of an accurate User Requirement Specification (URS), b) a practical method for estimating the volume of supply air needed to maintain the specified ISO room classifications in operation, c) tuning and d) benchmarking. An informative annex develops three useful metrics for benchmarking: power intensity for contamination removal (PICR), fan energy intensity for contamination removal (EICR) and energy intensity (EI).