Welcome to Fail-Safe Isolation.  I’m Steve Tattershall, editor, here, and long time student of isolation technology and process containment.  For over 15 years I’ve worked with professionals in R/DS. F. Tattershall, working with a petrie dish in a glove box, Healthcare, Quality Assurance and process industries to achieve effective, reliable isolation.  From Ebola drug trials in Sierra Leone to Uranium processing in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, I’ve seen tough isolation and controlled atmosphere challenges and I’ve found practical ways to conquer them.   While your isolation challenge may seem like a huge elephant, like these others, you can conquer it “one bite at a time” if you just follow a few simple rules.

The Right Isolation Rules

Following the rules is important in setting up and operating a controlled atmosphere, clean or sterile work-space, but they must be the right rules.  While a lot of classic rules are invaluable, being old and established doesn’t always mean being right.  One old rule to be careful about is the classic:

“The solution to pollution is dilution”

Which works beautifully in fireplaces, biological safety cabinets and clean rooms, especially when there are large amounts of smoke, heat or gas that must be removed from the process.  Unfortunately, this rule has become THE solution for hazardous and clean handling, even when the problem has nothing to do with large amounts of heat or particulate.  Thus you may be tempted to take your process to the fume hood, clean room, BSC or laminar bench, where isolation may NOT be what you get.  I’m engaged in this work because I’m on a mission to share easier, better isolation solutions that contain the isolated process without shifting contamination to the atmosphere, filters and landfills.  I’m an evangelist for simple, pressurized barrier isolation technology that saves time, simplifies process control and minimizes carbon footprint, while it saves money, saves the planet and get’s your process right the first time.

I thank you for visiting our little corner of the web, and I truly hope we can help you with your process challenges.  I’m always interested in the questions, ideas, feedback and suggestions of our visitors, so please contact me with your inputs or requests.

Best regards,

Steve,

Dayton, Ohio, USA