Characteristics of wipers and swabs for pharmaceutical applications

The manufacture of pharmaceuticals requires clean processing. Wipers are us ed to remove contaminants, such as chemical films, microbiological entities , and nonbiological particles, by wiping the walls, tables, and equipment a nd to inhibit biological activity by applying disinfectants. Cleaning proto cols can be validated using clean swabs for sampling and sensitive instrume ntation for quantification. The characteristics of wipers and swabs suitabl e for these purposes are explored.