In many circumstances, cleanrooms require an area to be free from microbes and impurities. This place cannot afford to have even a single particle of hazardous materials. Many people part of cleanroom walk carelessly inside the isolated area with their shoes carrying impermissible impurities. In cleanrooms, airborne particles that are not removed by the ventilation system deposit themselves onto a surface, where they can be transported by personnel walking on or past them. So, care must be taken by clean room sticky mats.
Sticky mats, also known as tacky mat or cleanroom mats are nothing but compressed layers of polyethylene film with an adhesive surface that is placed at the entrances or exits of cleanrooms to remove contaminants from the bottoms of footwear and wheeled carts. They come in bundles 1/8th of an inch thick with up to 30 sheets in a packet, and are available in a variety of colors and sizes.
These sticky mats could be temporary or permanent. In the temporary setting, when the top sheet gets contaminated with too much of dust or dirt particles, you can simply pull the tab at one corner and discard the old sheet and replace it with clean sheet, the one below it. Thus, these temporary sticky mats can be easily replaced, peeled off and discarded. There is an adhesive double-sided strip on the bottom of the packet. Once you remove the protective covering, you place the pad on the area you want to protect and you are ready to use it. The permanent sticky mats need to be washed with detergents and mops on regular intervals which is less preferred as its more time consuming.
Sticky mats were developed predominantly for use in clean rooms that require sterile environments. The adhesive covering over the mat works well for removing dirt but it also is treated to inhibit the growth of bacteria. It’s a remarkable invention in terms of essential component of cleanroom. It avoids the chance of dirt or any sort of microbial contamination.