Studies have shown that around 75% of Hardware failure is caused by dirt.
80% of dust and dirt entering your critical area does so on feet (Source: 3M).
Traditionally, data center operator uses "Sticky mats", which uses adhesive or glue, at the entrance of their equipment room to "prevent" dirt on staff's shoe from entering the room. However, not only are there these mats not comfortable to step on, new "sticky" mats can be so sticky which may be a "tripping" hazard for the unawared. In fact, we have heard stories where a staff at a data centre have fell and injured themselves because of these sticky mats.
In order to prevent a law suit, they temporarily "solve" this problem by requesting all personnel step over these mats. They still have to keep the sticky mats because of the "clean" room objective from upper management for the equipment room. The story has an happy ending - they started using ProtectaMats, which does not use adhesive, but is even more effective in attracting dirt.
These "sticky" mats also uses adhesvie which makes them loose their sticky property very quickly and require users to "peel" off the top dirty layer very often. Study have shown that if the top lay is not peeled off carefully, many dirt and dust becomes airborne again and may enter your critical area.
Dycem uses a specially formulated compound which uses short-range electromagnetic (Van der Waals) enable to attract, and retain over 99% of particles. The material can be easily clean using regular detergine and may be easily incorporated into your facility's cleaning operation.
Dycem has been in the clean room/contamination control industrial for since the 1970s, and their mats are used in many industries highly sensitive to contamination such as the pharmaceutical industry and silicon chipset manufacturing.
Use Dycem at:
- At all entrances and exits to critical environments either directly onto the floor substrate or on individual raised access tiles.
- Inside the critical areas to reduce the amount of airborne particulates.
Data Center operators have realized the importance of keeping their equipment room clean and have also used Dycem Protectamats at their data centre with great success.
Here are some happy customer using Protectamats to keep their data centre equipment room clean: Barclays, Orange, GCHQ, Royal Bank of Scotland, British Airways and Vodafone.
At Quantum Data Systems (H.K.) Ltd, we take great pride in introducing excellent products to our customers. In order to full understand the properties of these mats, we have recently purchase and tested the Dycem Protectamat out ourselves.
The Protectamats really does attract a lot of dirt, but it is also really easy to clean. The bright red leading edge tapers to the ground makes pushing carts and over the mat really easy. The mats also carry some weight and the no-slip surface on both side of the mat means the mat does not slip around. The mats can also be cleaned using regular floor detergine with a mop and use a squeegee to remove the water from the mat. We have no problem teach our 60+ years old clean lady to clean to mat daily at our office.
Visit our Protectamat page for more information.
More information is available in Dycem's brochure
