The inventor of the
modern cleanroom, Willis Whitfield, will be honored posthumously by the
National Inventors Hall of Fame for a technology that revolutionized
manufacturing in electronics and pharmaceuticals, made hospital
operating rooms safer and advanced space exploration.
The inventor of the modern cleanroom, Willis Whitfield, will be honored posthumously by the National Inventors Hall of Fame for a technology that revolutionized manufacturing in electronics and pharmaceuticals, made hospital operating rooms safer and advanced space exploration.
Whitfield, the son of Texas cotton farmers who became a physicist, retired from Albuquerque’s Sandia National Laboratories in 1984 and died Nov. 12, 2012, shortly after the laminar-flow cleanroom invention’s 50th anniversary. With slight modifications, his invention is still the standard.
The air was circulated in the room at a rate of 4,000 cubic feet or about 10 changes of air per minute. The resulting linear speed of the air is slightly more than 1 mph, which is about the same as that felt walking through a still room.
In a later modification, the air was passed down over the work area instead of across, letting gravity help carry troublesome particles into the floor, which was covered with grating. Filters underneath clean the air and it is circulated back around to re-enter the room.
Based on a report from PhysOrg
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