Benefits of Cleanroom Pass Throughs

Reduced foot traffic

Perhaps the most significant benefit of a cleanroom pass through is to reduce foot traffic by minimizing the need for non-vital personnel to enter the controlled environment. This provides several advantages:

• Minimizing the number of people entering a controlled environment improves safety by severely diminishing the risk of contamination between rooms.
• It reduces the square footage required to store or complete work inside the cleanroom, which leads to lower costs for building and operating a cleanroom.
• Reducing foot traffic increases workflow efficiency by minimizing mandatory and time-consuming gowning procedures before entry into a cleanroom.

Increased Productivity

Beyond the convenience of safely transferring raw material, products or equipment, Terra’s cleanroom pass throughs increase productivity by automating certain processes that would otherwise be done manually.

Configurable with countless IoT devices, Smart® passthrough boxes can help transfer data over your network to minimize human-to-human and human-to-computer interaction. For example:

• Easily tie Smart® passthrough cabinets into your building management system (BMS). Use access control software for remote control, monitoring and automatic recording of user access data.
• Wirelessly connected and IP-addressable, Terra’s electronic interlock system can be used for remote controlled lock-downs for planned maintenance or in an emergency. Scalable software allows upgrades for growth with additional material access points and increased personnel.
• Configure a barcode stock control system for improved inventory management and control. Speed up the process of receiving materials and ensure a more accurate count of what’s on hand with immediate updates to your database.
• Use load presence sensors to trigger a video camera feed or issue audible or visual alarms to alert staff materials are ready for pick-up.

Smart® passthrough cabinets can also automate cleaning/disinfecting with options that easily integrate into daily workflows to reduce costly maintenance and cleaning programs prone to human error:

• Automatic recirculating HEPA filtration and air shower passthroughs can be programmed for continuous use with adjustable airflow and pressure control for ISO 5 cleanroom applications to protect transferred material from particle contamination.
• Programmable built-in UV sanitizing modules with safety circuits eliminate 99+% of common bacteria and viruses within 2 minutes.

Increased Safety

Cleanroom pass through cabinets feature standard, built-in door interlocks. This mechanism allows only one door to open at a time, creating an effective airlock between the cleanroom and outside to minimize cross-contamination. Terra offers pass thru cabinet doors leakage-rated by Underwriter Laboratory (UL) to control leakage of air and cross contamination between rooms. Fire rated pass through chambers are rated for 90 minute exposure to protect your personnel, equipment, and facility. Terra also provides a wide range of available safety upgrades for your cleanroom transfer hatch:

• A key card reader for your cleanroom pass through chamber provides additional protection during sensitive material transfer and storage by securing and limiting chamber access.
• A fingerprint scanner for your pass through offers biometric security for an added layer of protection.
• Iris scanners installed to a cleanroom pass box offer convenient hands-free biometric security.
• Video camera devices offer 24/7 visual surveillance, providing an additional level of security for sensitive material transfer.
• A customizable LCD message panel conveniently displays environmental data and operating status relevant to your workflow.

Easy to Clean

Featuring industry leading sanitary compliance measures, Terra’s stainless steel cleanroom pass through boxes offer easy-to-clean designs to significantly reduce contamination risks.

• CleanSeam™ pass thru boxes with continuous seam welds eliminate hard to clean cracks and crevices that can harbor particles and germs.

• CleanMount™ double wall stainless steel pass throughs conceal the door interlock mechanism behind the chamber’s wall for a completely unobstructed, easy-to-clean chamber interior. The coved interior corners and lip-less edges on the chamber further simplify wipe downs by eliminating hard-to-clean areas around the perimeter of the doors.

Application Specific Designs

Terra offers innovative cleanroom pass throughs to meet the demands of any application. These highly specialized pass through boxes support required conditions such as cleanliness, air filtration or particle control, chemical resistance, ESD safety, and access control. They are also designed to transfer specific types of materials, such as extra large equipment, small lab samples, or simple documents.

• Pharmaceutical: With heavily mandated sanitary requirements associated with USP 797 and USP 800 cleanrooms, a clean air pass thru is a vital point for sterile pharmaceutical compounding. Terra’s HEPA filtered pass through and Smart HEPA filtered pass thru meet and exceed USP 797 and USP 800 guidelines.
• Hospitals: Laboratories and, especially hospitals, require a means of safe specimen transfer, and a specimen pass through cabinet fulfils the demands. Terra’s ValuLine pass thru chamber offers a low cost alternative for less stringent non-sterile applications.

• Biomedical & Life Sciences: Terra’s BioSafe pass through chambers offer an aseptic environment with a seamless design, perfect for biomedical applications where sanitation is the ultimate concern. The autoclave-safe stainless steel doors on these pass through hatches easily lift off for more thorough cleaning or sterilization.
• Semiconductor & Electronics: Microchip processing for everything from solar panels to smartphones requires a strict adherence to ESD-safety. Terra offers a full range of ESD safe and easy to clean pass through chambers built with static dissipative-PVC.

• Chemical Manufacturing: Terra’s polypropylene cleanroom pass box designs built stand up to the harshest chemicals. They are perfect for applications involving strong acids or other corrosive chemicals.

• Documents and Small parts: Cleanroom pass through windows allow for efficient workflow as paperwork and other small materials are easily transferred between hospital and lab spaces. These medical pass through windows and transaction windows are ideal for rooms that don't have strict air pressure or security requirements.

Built to Last

The two main components that define a pass through cabinet are the doors and interlock mechanism. These seemingly small details make a big difference, as they are the two most common features likely to break or malfunction on a pass through box. A non-functioning “out of service” passthrough box in a worst case scenario can lead to an extremely costly shutdown of critical operations. Through 40 years of refinement and attention to detail, our pass through chambers have been designed and tested to perfect these important features for guaranteed long-lasting, easy to maintain, and reliable operation.

• Rugged Interlocks: Terra’s automatic interlocks fitted inside the transfer hatch are rated for millions of operations ensuring long-lasting, reliable operation. The heavy-duty stainless steel interlock mechanism retracts inside an easy-to-clean stainless steel housing when not engaged to eliminate protruding hardware.
• Reinforced Doors: Terra’s pass thru cabinets are reinforced with stainless steel frames, which lend rigidity for an improved seal, and extend the service life of the doors. Ergonomic lift latches minimize stress on your wrists and easily close to produce a strong seal. The door frame is also lined with a one piece durable and chemical resistant rubber gasket. This flexible gasket provides a tight seal that will not creep or deform over time. Terra’s pass thru cabinet doors are also completely removable for further cleaning, maintenance or repair.