Old knowledge, new applications: A story of science and collaboration
- Nathan Decoster
- Associate Business Manager
At Advipro, training is highly valued; it is an essential part of our business. In our GxP Academy with operational cleanroom, we organise both internal and external training courses, ranging from aseptic working and contamination control to tailor-made training programmes. Equally important to us is the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers, which starts in high school.
My name is Nathan Decoster (Associate Business Manager MoVE) and I recently met up with Herman Van Slambrouck (pictured), my old physics teacher at the GO! Royal Lyceum Antwerp, where I graduated in the Science-Mathematics class in 2012. Mr Van Slambrouck quickly sparked my interest in science by explaining the relevance of physical phenomena.
New life for old technology
Within our MoVE department (Mobile Validation Engineers), we only work with state-of-the-art test equipment.
Equipment technology is evolving rapidly, so we are constantly tightening our requirements for this. Devices that no longer meet these requirements are taken out of service. But what do you do with these devices next? Taking an old particle counter to the recycling park would be a deadly waste of technology. After asking who could benefit from this, someone immediately sprang to mind - my old physics teacher. The goal: to do our bit to make the relevance of science clear to young people!
Science in practice
Below, I give some concrete examples of scientific applications in a cleanroom.
The operation of a photodiode
Why is it important to learn how a photodiode works? Well, one of the many applications of photodiodes is measuring light intensities using a Lux meter. Light intensity is measured in the pharma sector, for example, as part of visual inspections, operator comfort or when products are light sensitive. Starting from the new school year, students at KLA will be able to see how this works in practice and will be able to measure light intensities from 470 to 690 nm.
A new take on Bernoulli's law
Why is Bernoulli's law actually useful? Bernoulli's law can be used to measure velocities in liquids and gases using a pitot tube. The flow hood we use at MoVE to measure air flows in cleanrooms also uses this pitot tube principle. It measures the dynamic pressure caused by the moving air and the static pressure caused by the air pressure present and then calculates the air velocity. Who would have ever thought that Bernoulli's principles would prove their usefulness in cleanroom validations and thus contribute to the production of safe medication?
Laser diffraction in a clean room
So what is the point of learning what laser diffraction is? Laser diffraction is used in particle counters to count the size and quantity of particles to verify the cleanliness of cleanroom air. Air is drawn into the sensor chamber where particles in the air stream cross the path of a laser and disrupt this beam. This laser diffraction is picked up by a detector (photodiode) after which the particle counter analyses the size and quantity of particles.
our contribution
In a world that is constantly evolving, combining old wisdom and new technologies is crucial for our future. With this donation, we hope to do our bit for the next generations of problem-solvers. We are already looking forward to seeing what experiments our devices will be used in.