Protecting your Achilles heel

Scientists and technicians must protect their laboratories against the leaks of harmful substances to ensure high standards of health and safety. Here Gavin Cornall explains how the sector can protect its Achilles heel of cable and pipe seals

THE LABORATORY industry is under enormous pressure to ensure the highest standards of health and safety, and one of the biggest problems the sector faces is preventing leaks of harmful substances.  Failure to prevent a leak carries swingeing punishments which could result in fines, legal action and the removal of a license to operate. Failing to prevent a leak risks high profile negative publicity which can damage an organisation’s credibility in its sector and with the public, and could lead to loss of business. It is therefore essential to prioritise operational health and safety.

There are clear regulations to prevent the escape of dangerous and biological agents from contained rooms. These appear in the law covering the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. This places a legal duty on operators of clean rooms to monitor and protect staff as well as the public from exposure to harmful substances.

Critically the prime cause of leaks from clean rooms and laboratories are the services entering the structure such as cable, pipe and duct. There is no doubt that maintaining an airtight and robust seal around cables and pipes is a formidable challenge for designers and engineers. 

The problem for clean and contained room designers, and those responsible for their upkeep, is that any cleanroom or laboratory may have a vast array of electrical cables and pipes entering the room.  The greater the number of service penetrations the greater the risk of a leak.  Moreover, the risk is constant. Simple checks or installing new cables or pipes can disturb existing seals immediately increasing the risk of leak.

At the heart of the problem are the fumigants used in these rooms and the vital need for the rooms to remain airtight both in operation and during cleaning. Powerful cleaning chemicals, such as formaldehyde and Vaporised Hydrogen Peroxide, are used.  The risk associated with exposure to these substances is so great that a robust sealing solution is essential.

So what can be done to maximise cable and pipe seal safety and maintain the all important airtight integrity of the room? Roxtec has been manufacturing cable and pipe seals since 1990 and their seals are used in a wide variety of industries to protect people, buildings and equipment from a range of hazards. Their seals work by sealing cable and pipes from a range of hazards including fire, water, chemicals, explosion, vermin, vibration and flooding. And critically their seals also ensure airtight integrity in some of the most advanced and high profile clean and contained sites in Britain.

Roxtec works as an alternative to mastic seals which cannot provide the same level of protection or airtight integrity against hazards. Importantly it works by reducing the number of cuts into a clean room’s structure and walls.

The solution utilises Multidiameter, a Roxtec innovation that allows layers to be peeled from the sealing module to ensure a perfect fit to the cable or pipe every time. Multiple modules within one frame allow all services to be routed through one opening and it leaves in-built capacity for more cables and pipes if the room needs to be upgraded.  The solution can cover all cables and pipes passing into the lab areas including power, data, lighting, communications, door entry, security, water, gas and drainage where they pass through the containment structure. Having one point of entry prevents the room being disturbed with multiple cuts which always risks dislodging existing cables and creating multiple potential leak paths. It further saves an enormous amount of man hours for maintenance and installation. 

The Roxtec system is further certified for gas pressures of up to 2.5 bar. Roxtec has specialised in gas tight sealing of cables and pipes in hazardous ATEX rated environments for a number of years where they have been used to seal potentially explosive gas environments, and are now increasingly being utilised in CL3 and CL4 level contained rooms. Moreover Roxtec's seals are one of only a few products capable of maintaining a gas tight seal in both negative and positive pressure environments.

Paul Fitzpatrick, principal engineer M+W Zander FE UK uses the Roxtec system. He said: "We design and construct high tech facilities including microbiological containment laboratories and Roxtec products provide a simple way of achieving excellent sealing performance of service penetrations into the facilities. The products also allow for easy future adaptation of the services serving a laboratory as opposed to an applied silicone solution. Roxtec provides repeatable results time and time again."

In essence Roxtec works by tackling the Achilles heel of clean and contained room design by specifically strengthen the weakest spot and most common source of leaks. They strongly advise operators and engineers not to neglect this element of the design or maintenance of your room.  You must take responsibility for this vital area yourself. The legal and commercial implications of getting it wrong are simply too severe not to provide a more robust solution in order to actively improve operational safety.