Disposable Apparel for Preventing Contamination

A super clean environment is the first requirement of every laboratory or operating room. If the personnel carrying out the operations are exposed to any dangerous particles in the process or the product and process in the operating room come in contact with any human contaminants, both can be harmful for each other. Disposable protective apparel is, therefore, mandatory to provide a barrier between these two.

Seam Technique for Disposable Apparel

Special kinds of seam techniques are used for sewing these garments in order to avoid the passage of particles inside or outside the apparel. There are particularly three kinds of seams:

• Interlocked stitching: Two pieces of garments are joined together with an interlocking stitching technique.
• Double needle stitching: Two pieces are interlocked and then sewed with a double needle.
• Layer bound stitching: A third layer of garment is put over the seam and stitched to ensure extra protection.

Materials Used for Disposable Apparel

There are different kinds of base materials that are used for constructing disposable apparel. To name a few of them, we have:

• Polypropylene: This is a cheap material and therefore ideal for disposable garments. It is used extensively to construct head caps, shoes and overall covers. However, their particle resistance capability is low compared to other materials.
• Polyethylene: It is efficient to resist fluids for a short period and widely used in cleanrooms and laboratories.
• Spunbond olefin: This is a very high quality and strong fabric for use in cleanrooms. This material has a very small pore size and therefore is an excellent barrier for dirt particles.
• Vinyl: Due to the chemical resistance properties of this material, it is commonly used in making disposable aprons and garment sleeves.

Different Kinds of Disposable Apparel
Disposable garments range from the covering of your mouth to overall coverage. Some of the garments used extensively by professionals while carrying out special procedures are:

• Aprons: Aprons are worn over the routine garments to cover the chest, stomach and thighs. Long coat aprons are open at the back and come with full long sleeves and fronts.
• Bouffant caps: They are constructed from polypropylene and worn to avoid contamination caused by the shedding of hair. An elastic band is used to keep this cap in place. Two primary sizes of diameters – 21 inches and 24 inches – are available in these caps.
• Beard covers: These covers are used to prevent environment contamination by shedding of facial hair. They are worn through elastics around the ear loops and cover beard, moustache and sideburn.
• Shoe covers: They are worn over the shoes in higher class cleanrooms and are usually prepared from polypropylene. Shoe covers come in various sizes, such as regular, large and extra large.
• Boot covers: Where shoe covers provide limited protection from contamination, boot covers are 18-20 inches high and give full protection. They also have an elastic band on the top and therefore can be easily worn with coveralls.
• Sleeve covers: In high tech labs, where engineers have to come in contact with highly chemical and harmful solutions, vinyl sleeve covers provide considerable protection. They have elastic at their ends and usually are 17-20 inches in length.
• Face masks: Face masks are made to cover the nose and mouth area in order to minimize the contamination spread through skin flakes, mucous and cosmetics. These masks are worn with the help of elastics around the ear loop.
• Coveralls: Coveralls used for high level cleanroom classes are designed with military collar and no pockets. They are usually worn with boot covers, caps, face veil and gloves in order to provide full body coverage.

Before donning any apparel, make sure that it fits properly and is comfortable. Special adhesive mats and air showers are also kept outside the cleanrooms. These attract a lot of particles from the body.