[labnetwork] Cleanroom recovery after smoke in intake

[Mark Weiler]

LOL

I already told him the same thing yesterday... I just responded to him instead of the whole group.

I also asked him how far he was from the actual blaze as that could also be an issue ...because some particulate is going to travel farther than others and some adhere to surfaces differently, but that his pre-filters would likely do their job and he should go ahead and replace the first stages.

I also told him to reach out to us directly if he needs any help.

Best,

Mark



Mark Weiler
Fab Equipment & Facilities Manager
Carnegie Mellon Nanofabrication Facility
Electrical and Computer Engineering | Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890<x-apple-data-detectors://3/1>
T: 412.268.2471<tel:412.268.5430>
F: 412.268.3497<tel:412.268.3497>
www.ece.cmu.edu<http://www.ece.cmu.edu/>
nanofab.ece.cmu.edu<http://nanofab.ece.cmu.edu/>

On Jun 7, 2018, at 7:51 AM, Matthew Moneck <mmoneck at andrew.cmu.edu<mailto:mmoneck at andrew.cmu.edu>> wrote:

Hi Leslie,

Sorry to hear about the troubles.  As some other suggested, I would start with particle counts.  We recently had a brush fire producing a haze of smoke (as opposed to a thick cloud) not far from our air intakes.  There was a significant burning smell within the lab, but we saw no change in particle counts.  Unless you have carbon filters installed, the burning smell will penetrate as Danny has suggested.  Similarly, we get odors from lawnmower exhaust when grass is being cut near the air intakes.  Again, we do not see any increase in particle count.

If the smell is persisting in the lab and will not go away, I suspect that your prefilters  in the make-up air unit may be contaminated with large smoke particles and ash and may therefore need to be replaced.  Our make-up air unit has two banks of prefilters in series and a hepa filter at the output.  We have gauges monitoring the pressure drop across the filters at each stage.  During our smoke event, we did not see any increase in the pressure drop across the final hepa.  Most of the large particles were captured by the first bank of Merv8 prefilters.  With this in mind, I would at least replace the first bank of pre-filters in your system (I would assume these are on a regular replacement schedule anyway).  If you have additional concerns, you can check the pressure drop across other filters in the system.

Best Regards,

Matt

--
Matthew T. Moneck, Ph.D.
Executive Manager, Carnegie Mellon Nanofabrication Facility
Electrical and Computer Engineering | Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
T: 412.268.5430
F: 412.268.3497
www.ece.cmu.edu<http://www.ece.cmu.edu>
nanofab.ece.cmu.edu<http://nanofab.ece.cmu.edu>

From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Leslie George
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2018 3:55 AM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: [labnetwork] Cleanroom recovery after smoke in intake

Dear colleagues,

A fire broke out on Monday at one of the retail locations on our campus. The smoke from the fire got into the air intake for our cleanroom, and we can smell smoke throughout the Facility. I’d like to draw on the collective wisdom of the group to help answer the following:


1.      Recommend recovery method for the air handling system? (both upstream of the AHU) and downstream including the HEPA’s.

2.      Recommended cleaning scheme for the interior of the facility?

I appreciate everyone’s assistance.

Kind regards,

Leslie George, BSc, MSc
Micro & Nano Fabrication Instructor,
Research Laboratories
Khalifa University – Masdar City Campus
Opposite Presidential Flight Airport
Masdar City, SAF 1A (Undercroft)
Khalifa City A,
United Arab Emirates
P O Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, UAE
T +971 2 810 9227
Fax +971 2 810 9901
M +971 50 84 9720
leslie.george at ku.ac.ae<mailto:leslie.george at ku.ac.ae>
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ku.ac.ae
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