Flooring in pharmaceutical areas must meet a specific set of criteria outlined by the current Good Manufacturing Practises code, FDA, USDA, and other agencies. This set of standards can protect customer well-being and ensure the manufacturing facility is adhering to standardised safety and hygiene practices. Pharmaceutical facilities are critical because human beings ingest their products to treat various illnesses. Bacterial contamination or product cross-contamination could drastically impact their products have lethal consequences for the consumers.
Every part of a pharmaceutical space needs to be planned to adhere to these safety standards. The flooring needs to be hygienic, robust, easy to clean and durable. An epoxy resin flooring is the best option for pharmaceutical facilities and adheres to all the specified criteria. Resinous flooring can include epoxy, polyurethane and acrylic materials applied as a fluid and then set. Resin flooring is resistant to high impact, abrasion, chemical and thermal shock. It can also be cleaned easily and restored over time.
The flooring must cover laboratories, clean rooms, cold rooms, dry operating areas, wet rooms, cloakrooms, and technical rooms for pharmaceutical companies. Resinous floor coating is suitable for sterile environments because it is chemical resistant and features electrostatic properties.
The flooring also needs to be seamless and smooth so it can be cleaned and decontaminated easily. An uneven floor that isn’t sealed correctly can result in contamination, injury, and multiple other challenges. Pathogens can enter a pharmaceutical area through the employees’ shoes and contaminate the flooring. As others walk on the surface, these contaminants are dragged throughout the facility. Although shoe covering protocols can diminish the risk of cross-contamination, cracked flooring can result in severe consequences.
Cracked flooring, visible seams or peeling corners are perfect places for microbes to lodge themselves under. These microorganisms can grow in hard-to-reach areas under the flooring and become impossible to remove by standard cleaning procedures. In these cases, the entire floor would need to be removed and sterilised before work can proceed in the pharmaceutical area.
The seam between the wall and floor is one of the biggest problem areas in manufacturing facilities. The current Good Manufacturing Practises criteria states that interior surfaces should be smooth, nonporous, and free of seams or open joints. Resin flooring is seamless and resistant to cracks when appropriately applied. It is processed and used in liquid form at roughly 20 degrees Celsius and hardens at 10 degrees Celsius. By applying it in a liquid form, the material can access all hard-to-reach areas and fully cover the floor with a seamless coating. It also offers an anti-slip finish to make it easy to walk on and resists multiple aggressive chemicals.
If you are looking for a floor coating for your pharmaceutical company, resinous flooring is the only way to go.
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