Compressed Air Monitoring

Contamination-free air

The monitoring of compressed air and bottled gases for microbial contamination is becoming more important within manufacturing facilities. This is because many automated lines use compressed air and in a lot of cases this air can also come into contact with product, whether it is empty vials or caps. Ensuring that this air is contamination-free is vital within any sterile or aseptic manufacturing process.

Methodology requirements

The ISO standard, ISO 8573-7 suggests the use of an impaction method for the capture of airborne viable particles. This method is achieved by accelerating air so that particles may be propelled out of the air stream and on to a suitable capture medium, such as an agar plate. The agar then recovers the viable particles to indicate colony forming units per volume of air.

Effective air sampling device

The SAS Pinocchio Super II is an unpowered compressed air sampling device. It employs the proven SAS method of direct multi point impaction on to an agar plate, either a Contact plate or Petri dish.