

Modern-day cleanroom invented by Sandia physicist still used 50 years later  - throwaway2048
https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/cleanroom_50th/#.U1eze_ldU5B

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wernerb
A recent "Cosmos" episode recounted that it was Clair Patterson who used the
worlds very first "ultra clean room" to count the parts per million of lead in
a meteorite to determine the age of the earth. Wikipedia says this happened in
1953. This is 9 years before the ultra clean room patent in 1963.

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tomswartz07
There were multiple variations of 'ultra clean rooms' existing around that
time. The one in this article is considered the most revolutionary because of
the air-cycling features.

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binarymax
I knew of laminar-flow [1] from my old competitive sailing days, never knew
the same principle was used for clean room tech. An amazing invention, RIP Mr.
Whitfield.

[1]
[http://www.nauticed.org/freesailingcourse-m1-33](http://www.nauticed.org/freesailingcourse-m1-33)

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Serow225
"Clean benches" are pretty neat, basically just a laminar flow ULPA panel
filter with fans on top, mounted above a work surface. They are used in
applications like hard drive disaster recovery labs - you don't need an
expensive cleanroom, just plop a couple of these benches in an ordinary "dirty
room" as they are called. As long as you open up the drive on the bench and
don't remove it from the bench until it's sealed back up, you're good to go!

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wlievens
We use this at a contractor site for testing. Assembly of electronics has
already happened, so no need for a high grade clean room environment, but
still has to be relatively dust free. We call it a "flow bench".

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captn3m0
Does anyone know if he or his company patented it?

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jzwinck
Here you go:
[http://www.google.com/patents/US3158457](http://www.google.com/patents/US3158457)

