New dry cleanroom certificates

"Pre-aging" and "aging behavior" are central concepts of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) whose clean and dry cleanroom certifications were developed in close cooperation with igus®. igus® received the first certification for cleanroom capability in the dry room for the E6 e-chain back in 2023. However, this certification was only a snapshot after a 24-hour run-in phase. In order to offer our customers long-term security, we commissioned the IPA to carry out a test to investigate the aging behavior in the dry room. Two of our best cleanroom energy supply systems, E6.J and the e-skin® flat system, were tested over a period of 10 months on an endurance machine in the dry room. They completed over 15 million double strokes. The systems were tested and certified for their cleanroom class every two months.

Our e-skin® flat system survived the double stroke without any problems and received the best possible certification of ISO Cleanroom Class 4. A higher certification is not possible because the test environment (ISO Class 3 dry cleanroom with a relative humidity of <1%, corresponding to a dew point of -40°C) is not clean enough. The E6.J was able to maintain this result for 4 months, but then dropped a cleanroom class and finished with ISO Class 5, which is a very good result for battery production. The so-called pre-aging certificate, which we commissioned for our e-skin® soft and E14 energy supply systems, certifies the systems after 15 million double strokes and 10 months in the dry room. Here, we also received the best possible cleanroom ISO Class 4 certification. Thanks to these long-term studies and certifications from the Fraunhofer Institute IPA, we were able to confirm that our energy supply systems are safe for automation in the dry room and have very low particle emissions.

Note: The cleanroom energy chains SKS28, e-skin® flat and E6 have ISO Class 1 cleanroom certification at normal room humidity.