Imagine a world without smartphones or where modern cancer treatments and mRNA vaccines are just a dream, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope never left the ground. What about a world without pacemakers, where nanotechnology research was impractical, and high-precision camera lenses were so riddled with defects they were, well, not high precision. That would…

For six decades, the R&D 100 Awards have been a benchmark of achievement in science and technology, often referred to informally as “The Oscars of Innovation.” This year, we’re offering a new interactive experience, allowing you to explore the remarkable work of both winners and finalists across diverse fields. From advances in mechanical and material…

NTT Research is playing the long game, tackling challenges that others shy away from. While many R&D labs focus on a relatively near-term ROI for research, NTT is more patient, taking a page from storied labs like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC that prioritize bigger, riskier but potentially more transformative bets. Its website declares: “Our…

EnviroMax Enclosures are specifically engineered to isolate robotic and lab automation processes and equipment while maintaining a safe working area. These enclosures provide either exhaust air systems or clean workstation environments. They are designed to isolate liquid-handling workstations, HPLC equipment sample weighing, high-throughput screening, powder handling and other lab automation processes. The enclosures are engineered…

CCS (Controlled Containment System Enclosures) are engineered to safely contain and control airborne particulate to and from sampling procedures. Dispensing from drums and weighing procedures are typical applications. Drums or equipment can be easily rolled into the enclosure through the strip curtain entrance. Both the process and surrounding environment are protected from contamination. A downward…

Modular Clean Labs feature a modular construction design that is cost effective and time efficient compared to traditional construction. An entire laboratory workspace is pre-engineered including the structure and the lab furniture/fume hoods to outfit the interior. Modular Clean Labs wall panels have a white fiberglass surface for chemical resistance and excellent light reflectivity. Because…

Enclosures are designed to isolate liquid handling workstations, HPLC equipment, sample weighing, high throughput screening, powders handling and other lab automated processes by providing exhaust air systems or HEPA filtered clean workstations. Enclosures are built to protect personnel from hazardous fumes, and processes from Lab contamination. Utilizing a flexible, modular design, HEMCO Enclosures are engineered…

NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft has completed acoustic and thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The acoustic test of the spacecraft that will carry the Mars 2020 rover to a soft touchdown in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, is the best Earthly approximation for what the spacecraft will endure…

High-speed doors play a key role in maintaining clean operations in pharmaceutical plants. They are designed to address facility needs for environmental control, productivity and safety (as well as cleanliness). In cleanroom applications, they are used to maintain correct room pressures, air circulation rates and optimal operating efficiency and to prevent cross-contamination. High operating speeds are critical to minimize air infiltration when staff members…

For the past few months, the cleanroom floor in High Bay 1 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been covered in parts, components and test equipment for the Mars 2020 spacecraft, scheduled for launch toward the Red Planet in July of 2020. But over the past few weeks, some of these components—the…

Due to suspect counterfeit and noncompliant static control gloves buys from online, catalogs and offshore sourcing, one cannot rely upon a supplier Technical Data Sheet as proof of compliance. Contrary to many government and industry practices, static control or electrostatic discharge (ESD) products cannot be qualified by a visual inspection process. Today, the risk of…

A Minienvironment is an enclosure equipped with a fan and filter unit which isolates the product or process from its surrounding environment. Minienvironment or barrier cleanrooms are commonly employed in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries to create isolated spaces within a cleanroom to provide better control on cleanliness and prevent contamination. Minienvironments also isolate products…

The web page for the Mars 2020 mission has a countdown clock of nearly 500 days until launch. For much of the time until then, the rover will spend its days in a cleanroom at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, before being sent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final assembly…

The pharmaceutical industry requires some of the most strictly monitored environments in any manufacturing sector, with cleanrooms the most monitored areas of all. Although cleanrooms vary in size and complexity, the prevention of access-related contaminant infiltration is crucial to almost all of them, and high-speed doors play an integral role in it. Recent advancements in…

The cleanroom—an artificial environment specially engineered to minimize the concentration of airborne pollutants—has undergone many improvements and refinements since Willis Whitfield installed the first one at Sandia National Laboratories in 1962. Today, the cleanroom plays a vital role in manufacturing processes in the pharmaceutical and microprocessor industries, as well as other sectors where it is…

Data from particle monitoring in cleanrooms in pharma production applications is critical data. It is crucial that particle monitoring systems are properly supported. With advances in software and networking, remote assistance and service level agreements (SLA) vendor support contracts should enable pharma production to take full advantage of fast response times over the Internet by…

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has successfully passed another series of critical testing milestones on its march to the launch pad. In recent acoustic and sine vibration tests, technicians and engineers exposed Webb’s spacecraft element to brutal dynamic mechanical environmental conditions to ensure it will endure the rigors of a rocket launch to space. During…