The Difference is in the Detail
July 09, 2008
Dortek’s Technical Director Les Blennerhasset looks at what makes a door hygienic and why Dortek doors are the doors of choice for the world’s top pharmaceutical facilities.
Material
Dortek’s hygienic doors are moulded from glass reinforced polyester. GRP/FRP is a high technology engineering composite, manufactured from millions of strands of glass fibre and polyester resin. Doors are produced using a unique closed mould process, creating a strong, uniform product with no seams or joins on the door surface and no holes or crevices within.
Finish
Unlike alternatives, colour is built into the door during the manufacturing process, and the outer skin has a gel coat finish that is chemically bonded to the glass fibre, ensuring that such doors will never require repainting or refinishing – avoiding costly shutdowns and maintenance throughout the door’s lifetime
Flush Fitting & Seamless
Dortek doors are designed to be fit for purpose. With a smooth surface they have no ledges, recesses or right angles where dust particles can be trapped or bacteria particles can grow.
We are constantly developing innovations to our product offerings to enhance the hygienic performance of the product. Small, but critical, features including flush fitting recessed hinges, vision panels, lock keeps and receivers have all been continuously re-designed to minimise and eliminate dirt gathering areas.. The GRP door blade is designed to have no sharp edges or 90 degree angles for ease of cleaning. Our frames are seamless, smooth, again with round edges and seamless mitres with no crevice or dirt gathering areas.
Our Stainless Steel frames are seamless, again with hygienic mitres. Similarly, for sliding doors, the track, canopy, automation and door blade are all specifically designed for clean applications.
Considerable care and quality control goes into every Dortek doorblade to ensure the smoothest possible finish.
Strength
Wooden and laminate doors are not only weaker than GRP doors, and thus more easily damaged, but can also pose a higher risk, as a knock or chip may reveal organic materials below where bacteria could reproduce, as well as being virtually impossible both to clean and to keep clean effectively.
The table below shows the strength of GRP compared to alternative materials. GRP doors are extremely strong whilst been lightweight and easy to operate.
Cleanability
Doors should be able to tolerate constant cleaning with a number of different chemicals, including prolonged use of disinfectants, chlorine-releasing agents and alcohol-impregnated wipes. Laminate and painted wooden doors can, on occasion, deteriorate and flake once exposed to common cleaning regimes. This can lead to costly maintenance and deterioration, meaning that the doors have to be replaced after a short space of time.
Ease of cleaning is also taken into consideration when fitting hardware or door furnishings. Hardware to be fixed to our GRP doorsets is prepared using state of the art CAD/CAM technology, ensuring the tightest possible fit of flush-fitting door furniture.
Sealing
Cleanrooms rely on positive or negative pressure to help keep the working environment contamination-free. High Efficient Particulate Air (HEPA) Filters can prevent 99.97% of particles measuring greater than 0.3 microns in size, from entering the cleanroom. The doors should work with this system to reduce crosscontamination and air handling costs. Dortek’s hermetically sealed doors are 99% effective allowing room pressure differentials to be accurately calculated and correct pressure maintained.
Compliance
ISO-1464 44-4 2001 states: “Doors should present as few horizontal ledges as possible with particular attention being paid to the minimisation of steps or ledges in the door surface.”
With the increased importance of maintaining a functional and economical clean environment, some pharmaceutical companies are now going beyond the ISO regulations and defining their own global compliance standards for cleanroom doors. At a recent presentation attended by Dortek, one of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical companies defined its own GMP requirement for cleanroom doors:
“Door shall have smooth, non absorbent surfaces and, where appropriate, be self closing and close fitting.”
“The materials for construction should be:
■ Easy to clean
■ Non-fibrous and non-shedding
■ Resistant to the accumulation of
dirt and debris
■ A barrier against the harbourage of dirt
and debris
■ Inert and not normally reactive to
chemical or other agents used in the
environment.
Dortek doors meet these points proving why they are the supplier of choice for 14 of the global top 20 pharmaceutical manufacturers across 15 countries.
For more information on any of these points please contact us at or on +44 (0) 1482 226848.