For a long time, clean-room technology has no longer been a synonym exclusively for the production of medical products, semiconductors or microchips. Increasingly, other technical applications pose increased cleaning requirements on the production environment – be they moulded parts with particularly demanding surfaces or parts with sensitive microstructures. Regardless of that, many moulders have now realized that particularly “clean”, i.e. largely dust-free, ambient conditions have a positive influence on the quality of the formed parts produced and, thus, on the cost-effectiveness of the production. The requirement, however, is always that the individual steps taken are in an economical relationship to the intended purpose. In other words: The product determines the ambient conditions.
The fully electric IntElect 50 installed in a fully automatic unit with clean-room equipment, it will provide an impressive demonstration of producing medical components.
The Technique
For linking injection moulding machines to a clean production environment, the main focus must be on the end product, i.e. the formed parts must be protected from contamination. In practice, this means that the path of the formed parts out of the mould for packaging or further processing is critically reviewed. The moulder should have a clean-room zone which, with a minimum of expenditure for technical equipment, offers maximum protection from contamination in relation to the application.
To describe it in a few words, the purpose of clean rooms is the protection of products to be produced from so-called “airborne” particles. This includes, for instance, dust, but also germs and bacteria. The deciding factor for the required expenditure for technical equipment is the future use of the products. Thus, sterility is, for instance, an important factor in the production of medical products. In comparison, in the field of microelectronics, an extremely dust-free production environment is necessary.
Benefits
1. Individual, defined and product-related ambient conditions
2. Production of commodities with limited particle or germ concentration
3. Minimizing dust formation in relation to the production environment
4. Continuous product protection from production to shipment
5. Reduction in the number of defects and rejects
6. Safeguarding delicate production stages and cycles
7. Economically comprehensible approaches to solving problems
8. Integration of peripherals that make sense
Application examples
1. Medical products (e.g. disposable syringes, inhalers, etc.)
2. Packaging (e.g. stoppers, containers for medicinal tablets, etc.)
3. Outer shells (e.g. IMD decorative components, mobile phone casings, etc.) Optical components (lenses, magnifying glasses, screens, etc.)
4. Consumer Electronics industry (e.g. DVDs, microchips, etc.)
