Decontamination Area Flooring

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Of all the flooring available out there, finding the right decontamination flooring has probably got to be the most difficult. After all this is the day of such things as anthrax, and other contaminants. Thus decontamination area flooring might be used in areas found in buildings such as hospitals, or perhaps in laboratories where contamination of some kind has occurred. When anthrax was found within government office buildings, vaporous disinfectants were used in order to completely eliminate anthrax back in 2001. Thus the mechanics are in place for decontaminations. There are a number of different vaporous disinfections that are useful for this kind of decontamination such as hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide gas and also formaldehyde.

As for the floors in such a decontamination area, they must obviously be hermetically sealed, which in flooring refers to their being monolithic. If such decontamination area flooring was not monolithic, then part of the contaminants might go under the flooring to cause complications. Take for example the disinfectant most often in use recently. It is vaporous hydrogen peroxide. What happens is that the contamination is converted into both water as well as oxygen. One does not wish to find any dangerous byproducts within the flooring therefore even the water produced must not enter flooring.

In hospitals, there are times when entire wards must be decontaminated, but most often it is a singular patient room. Regardless of how many rooms needs to be decontaminated, hospitals are wary enough and educated enough to utilize the best flooring available for such decontamination area flooring. The elimination of healthcare-associated pathogens actually starts from the floor up in those contaminated hospital rooms.

Occasionally there needs to be decontamination of chemical agents. In this case water, soap and other cleansers may be put to use, even bleach at times. Chemical agents need to be removed from head to toe off the individuals, and once more contaminated water must not be allowed to enter into the underside of decontamination area flooring. Extreme care is necessary, thus the personnel are often required by OSHA to wear splash-protective fully chemical-resistant clothing. All that does is emphasize how important the decontamination area flooring will be in those instances.

All of the above is why so many hospitals, industrial hygiene as well as safety officers have approved of Silikal flooring as have many medical toxicologists and even hazardous materials teams. Silikal is completely and always will be totally monolithic. It is thoroughly seamless as well as being non porous, thus nothing will escape under the flooring. The objective of Silikal in regard to its decontamination area flooring is to have flooring available that will completely block flooring pathways via which contaminants could possibly spread and this is especially true where liquid antimicrobial products will be used as part of the decontamination.

Silikal takes the work involved in receiving full "no growth" decontamination on any of its flooring very seriously. This has been one of the reasons why Silikal is so very proud of its decontamination area flooring that can be relied upon so heavily in such cases. Also, Silikal was the company that created the enhanced formula that enables that decontamination area flooring to last a lifetime!