DI Water Fogger

 

A DI Water Fogger uses ultrasonic devices to create a pure fog to visualize airflow patterns and turbulence in smoke studies of pharmaceutical ISO suites, Bio-Safety Cabinets, medical rooms and clean rooms; providing compliance with USP 797 Pharmaceutical in-situ airflow analysis and the proposed USP 800 Hazardous Drug Compounding, Airflow Recovery Tests of ISO 14644-3 Annex B12, air flow tests for NSF Standard 49, National Sanitation Foundation; Visualization Tests for ISO 14644-3 Annex B7 and Semiconductor clean rooms, Federal Standard 209E.

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Description

DI Water Fogger – Request a Quote

  • Nine (9) ultrasonic transducers producing 8cfm of fog for 50 minutes
  • Easy Fill Water Port, Water Level Fill Indicator is on left panel
  • Portable Fogger provides a Carry Handle for portable operator convenience
  • Optional Remote Power Cable with an on/off switch to operate fogger behind a closed area
  • Polypropylene enclosure to prevent fingerprint stains and provide easy wipedown
  • Transducer life: 5,000 hours
  • Uses Deionized water or WFI water
  • 2″ Diameter (50.8 mm) hose that telescopes from 28″ (71.1 cm) to 82″ (208 cm)
  • Fog Hose and Power Supply with either 120VAC or 220VAC, to be selected, and 15 foot power cable
  • Easy to use with fast set up and instant On/Off operation
  • Optional Rolling Carry Case for the Portable Clean Room Fogger
  • Paperless operation with the instructions and applications labeled on the right side of the clean room fogger

Clean Room DI Water Fog Generator in ISO 1 – 9 Suites and Clean Rooms

  • Airflow balancing
  • Leak detection in ducts
  • Clean room laminar flow tests
  • Wet bench exhaust optimization
  • Personal safety exhaust verification
  • Chemical process equipment ventilation tests
  • Pressure balancing between rooms and spaces
  • Visualization of airflow patterns and turbulence
  • Supports Recovery Test evaluation, 100:1 recovery time as defined in ISO 14644-3
  • Supports airflow visualization tests for ISO 14644-3 ANNEX B7
  • Supports airflow visualization for NSF Standard 49, National Sanitation Foundation
  • Supports airflow visualization tests for Pharmaceutical USP 797 guidelines
  • Supports proposed USP 800 Hazardous Drug Compounding guidelines
  • Supports airflow visualization tests for SEMI Standards Guidelines

DI Water Fogger– Request a Quote
(Details)

DI Water Fogger
FOG Duration up to 50 minutes
FOG Volume 8 cubic feet per minute
Total FOG Volume 400 cubic feet of pure fog over 50 minute operation cycle
Visible Fog Distances 7-8 feet
FOG Type Pure Fog using DI Water WFI Water
Class of Clean Room Class 1 to 10,000
Type of Room Clean Room, Sterile Room, ISO Suite, Medical Room
Water capacity 3.75 liters
Consumed Water capacity 2.85 Liters
 
Liquid Weight 3.64 kg (8 lb.) Water
Power Requirements 115 VAC, 60 Hz, 14A
Optional Power 230 VAC, 50 Hz, 8A
Metric Dimensions, (H x W x D) 25.4cm x 22.9cm x 27.9cm
US Dimensions, (H x W x D) 10 inches x 9 inches x 11 inches
Full Weight 7.7 kg (17LBs.)

DI Water Fogger Information

A portable DI Water Fogger is often referred to a smoke generator or smoke machine used in smoke studies in barrier isolators and fume hoods. The visual fog is a water vapor, FOG, and not smoke! The phrases of Smoke machine is sometimes used by operators, but the fog is quite pure, leaving no contaminants behind. Operating notes are labeled on the right panel of enclosure, so no paper document is needed in clean room. Visualize air flow and disturbances around fume hoods, barrier isolators and bio safety cabinets. The DI Water Fogger supports ISO 14644-3, Annex B.7 Airflow Direction Test and Visualization; USP 797 Insitu Airflow Analysis and Semi-Standards Clean Room guidelines for airflow visualization and analysis.

Theory of Operation: Ultrasonic piezos in DI water or Water for Injection, WFI Water. Use of any other liquids or chemicals will void the warranty.

The transducer life is ~5000 hours, which is protected from electrical damage when water level is too low. The water level sensor will interrupt the input voltage to the transducer module, should the water level drop to a low level to . This ensures long life and reliability.
Notes:

  1. The clean room fog generated by this device contains microscopic droplets of DI water. AVOID USING IN IMMEDIATE VICINITY OF ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES, WATER SENSITIVE PRODUCTS AND EQUIPMENT.
  2. The fan will operate with no water in the reservoir with the power switch in the ON position. This will aid in drying when the chamber is drained.
  3. To increase drain plug tension, remove the plug, rotate clockwise (CW) the front latch while holding the rear metal disk.
  4. The clean room fogger is intended to be used on a flat surface, on its feet. Tipping the fogger with water in the reservoir will damage the fogger. DO NOT OVERFILL OR TIP THE FOGGER.

Portable DI Water Fogger – Request a Quote

The CRF-2 provides portability using the carry handle on top of the fogger. While carrying the fogger in this manner, it is important not to slosh the water around inside the water chamber. Should you need to move the fogger while water is inside the water container, mover the fogger with slow movements, so that water does not splash inside the fogger.

Which Clean Room Fogger Is Best For Smoke Studies?

Cleanroom UltraPure Fogger, Adjustable 2-5 Cubic Meters per minute for up to 75 minutes with 20-30 feet visible distance.
  • When high fog purity, high fog volume and long visible airflow is needed
  • To visualizing airflow in large clean rooms, ceiling to floor
  • To fog exit velocity must not create turbulence
  • To needing to do 3D airflow modeling of airflow
  • When needing to do visualize airflow in larger cleanrooms
  • When 75 minutes of high purity fog duration is needed
  • When fog visibility of 20-30 feet distance is required
  • To fog Class 1 to Class 10,000 semiconductor, medical, pharmaceutical clean rooms

* Use Hand Gloves and Face Shield when filling LN2
Use 16M ohm DI water or WFI Pharmaceutical Water

Clean Room DI Water Fogger, 8cfm, 50 minutes Operation
  • When budget is lower, basic Fogger OK, minimal output turbulence
  • When 60 minutes of fog duration is useful with quick turnaround
  • When fog visibility for 7-8 feet distance is acceptable
  • When fogging gray areas behind the clean room
  • When fogging ≥ Class 10 or above in semiconductor or pharmaceutical clean rooms
CO2 Fogger, CO2 Ice and DiH2O Fogger, dense fog for about 5 minutes, decreasing as CO2 ice evaporates to zero, total 8-12 minute fog cycle, depending on volume of CO2 ice used.
  • When Fogging Hazardous areas, No Electrical Outlet Available
  • When fog visibility for 5-6 feet distance is acceptable
  • When 10 minutes of fog duration is useful
  • When fogging small areas
  • Class 10 or above in semiconductor or pharmaceutical clean rooms
  • When fogging work benches

Fogger Technology

The three types of foggers manufactured for use in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industry are described below.

Ultrapure LN2 Fogger: This type of smoke generator or clean room fogger provides the highest volume, density and purity of fog. Purity is created by bringing the water to a high temperature, creating a vapor, while simultaneously using gravity to remove the residual mass from the vapor. This process removes any bacterial agents and residual particulate matter from the vapor. The pure vapor is then passed over an LN2 bath, which naturally boils at room temperature. The water molecules bond with nitrogen molecules, creating a nominal 3um fog droplet. The volume of water and nitrogen molecules that combine is extremely high in quantity, creating a dense, high volume, ultrapure fog output with exit temperatures of about 78 degrees F with an exit pressure of less than 0.5 lbs, so as not to disturb the surrounding airflow. The fog is ultrapure leaving minimal, if any, trace particles behind. It evaporates to its gaseous hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen components, which are natural to the Cleanroom environment. The high density of the fog increases the duration and travel distance of the fog. This fogger can be used in a Class 1 – 10,000 cleanroom environments of pharmaceutical and semiconductor facilities; such as sterile rooms, hospital rooms, medical rooms and cleanrooms.

DI Water Fogger: This type of fogger has less fog density (less capability to visualize airflow) than the UltraPure Fogger described above, but more density than the CO2 fogger described below. The DI water fog is generated by atomizing DI water into water droplets, which are nominally 3-10um in size. The water droplets may contain residual particulate matter remaining in the DI water, but this would be very trace amounts. If the facility manager operates a class 10 to Class 10000 Clean room, the use of a DI Water Fogger poses no problem. However, Cleanroom Engineers who manage facilities operating at Class 1 to Class 10 performance may desire to use an ultrapure fogger. Although some DI Water foggers are described as ultrapure, unless the DI water is vaporized to remove bacterial agents and residual particulate matter, the fog is not ultrapure. The 3-5lb output pressure of a DI water fogger also distorts the airflow patterns, thus adding to the turbulence. The temperature output is typically less than the surrounding room temperature, thus a fog generated from the atomized water droplets will sink momentarily in a typical 70 degree room temperature.

CO2 Fogger, CO2 Ice and DI Water: This type of smoke generator, CO2 Fogger, is designed for low volume, non-process critical applications such as bench airflow testing. The fog is created using CO2 ice as the fogging agent, combined with DI Water or WFI water. The fog is generated by evaporating CO2 ice with warm water and is ideal to visualize airflow and turbulence for short periods of time. The fog starts out with a large volume of fog at perhaps 10cfm, but as the CO2 ice evaporates, the fog volume then begins to decrease until no CO2 ice remains. The advantage of a CO2 fogger is the high initial density, making it useful for video applications; and the CO2 fogger is portable as it can be taken into a clean area with no power cords required during the fog process. The output starts at about 9-10cfm and slowly decreases to 0 CFM over a period of 8 – 12 minutes, depending on how much CO2 ice volume is placed in the warm water.

Smoke Sticks

Smoke Sticks are used in some Pharmaceutical Clean Rooms around the world. Below is a discussion on the use of smoke sticks used to visualize airflow and turbulence?

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!

Smoke Sticks – quality side of the drug product: The smoke chemicals are not of the same chemistry as the drug product, thus smoke chemicals and particulates could migrate into the drug process. There is no guarantee the cleaning process removed all the unwanted particulates and chemicals, from for example, a glove box or isolation box. The chemicals and particulates eventually migrate to the air filter system, which is not 100% effective. If this is the case, the quality and purity of the drug process is affected. Drug quality is the basis of product credibility, which is a valuable asset in customer relations.

Smoke Sticks – labor side of the drug product: The smoke is generated by a chemical reaction, which causes the smoke to sputter into the environment. The smoke is inconsistent in volume, thus the smoke stick is unpredictable for airflow visualization. The chemicals migrate to equipment and walls, which then must be cleaned, and requires an added labor cost. The use of Smoke sticks generates an inefficient smoke, not a consistent fog.

A Di Water Fogger produces a water (H2O) droplet that evaporates back into hydrogen and oxygen, the air we breathe. No clean up is required, at all. No additional time delays and clean up labor is not required. The fog is consistent in volume and constant in output to describe the airflow patterns and turbulence. These are equipment, quality and application concerns to consider when the need for airflow visualization is considered.

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