Cleanroom Fogger Video

Cleanroom Fogger Video

A smoke stick is often used visualize airflow turbulence, but smoke sticks are filled with particulates and chemicals. Smoke is created using chemical reactions; thus the smoke is SPUTTERING (sputter) or popping out of the smoke stick in a non-consistent pattern with velocity, but little volume. It is a particle smoke, compared to a visible, pure water based fog, thus smoke sticks are a contaminating smoke. The smoke stick generates an inconsistent flow or pattern of smoke, but it is low cost, which is why some managers allow use of smoke sticks in their Pharmaceutical clean rooms.

Compare a smoke stick to a Clean Room Fogger or an UltraPure LN2 fogger, both which produce a constant volume of fog with a consistent fog output and pure fog. Di Water foggers produce a consistent flow of visible water vapor, which enters the airflow to visualize the airflow patterns and turbulence, then begins to evaporate, returning back to the hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen components that we breathe. No particulate contamination, no chemical contamination. Water based foggers produce a constant volume of fog at a constant rate, which provides consistent visualization of airflow patterns and turbulence. The Smoke Stick has to be waved around to see what kind of airflow pattern there is, while a Di Water fogger is simply placed in position and produces a flow of fog that can be directed 360 degrees to easily describe the airflow patterns and turbulence. In addition, tubes are now available to create “fog curtains”, or a wall of fog, which smoke sticks can not produce.

How many smoke sticks are used per smoke cycle? How much labor is needed to clean up after smoke stick use. Do you need to Clean all the walls where the smoke stick was used. How did the chemical particulates and particles affect the process area? These are critical questions for a pharmaceutical manager. Did the contaminating particles and chemicals get into the drug process?

How much labor is used to cleanup after smoke stick use and if the cleanup did not get every chemical particle, then some smoke chemical material is added to the Pharma process or trapped in a filter somewhere, until it escapes into the Pharma process. That is a quality control issue for that company using smoke sticks.

The low labor cost of using smoke sticks is the reason facility managers may use smoke sticks, but are the chemical and particulate effects to the pharma process being analyzed? Non-contaminating fog does not emit particulates, requires less labor and does not contribute any unwanted chemicals to the Pharma process. A Di Water Fogger provides these advantages in fog volume, fog consistency and fog purity, which easily outweighs the low cost of smoke sticks, the high cost of labor for cleanup and the detrimental affects to quality control!

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