> receive e-mail to tune of "you're great but we're not sure how to make a metal-free clean lab work with your access needs" > start plotting how to get a carbon-fibre chair out of this deal
Because for this particular project/set of experiments, we'd be wanting extremely high-precision measurements of abundances of trace-in-rock metals - at isotopic masses that can be readily confused with much more common metals. So a wheelchair is a potential contaminant!
A lot depends on which cleanroom standard they're working to. I know from personal experience that, for example, semiconductor fab, PCB assembly and mechanical assembly work to very different standards.
I was assuming the problem was proximity of metal to the instruments (NMR or something). If what they want to avoid is direct contamination with bits of metal, then on the one hand wouldn't it suffice to cover a metal wheelchair so that no metal was exposed, and on the other wouldn't a carbon-fibre wheelchair also be a problem unless it had itself been manufactured and shipped under clean-room conditions and was never used outside?
FWIW, this is the only reference I can find to a cleanroom-safe wheelchair, but it's not yet in manufacture and it seems only to cope with Class 100 / ISO 5. That's this (photo) level of clean — which sounds lower than what they're after?
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-23 03:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-23 03:29 pm (UTC)(Here's a more technical outline of the project!)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-23 06:42 pm (UTC)Also wondering: Is it possible to get a carbon-fibre chair that doesn't have any metal at all even for nuts and bolts and stuff?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-24 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-24 04:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-23 07:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-23 07:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-24 01:47 pm (UTC)... that's how clean labs work
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-24 02:13 pm (UTC)I was assuming the problem was proximity of metal to the instruments (NMR or something). If what they want to avoid is direct contamination with bits of metal, then on the one hand wouldn't it suffice to cover a metal wheelchair so that no metal was exposed, and on the other wouldn't a carbon-fibre wheelchair also be a problem unless it had itself been manufactured and shipped under clean-room conditions and was never used outside?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-24 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-23 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-24 01:48 pm (UTC)