PHARMACEUTICAL AND FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES Much like the semi conductor industry, the pharmaceutical and food process industries are dependent on process surfaces that prevent product contamination, deter bacterial growth and are easily cleaned. Both mechanical and electropolishing can provide some or all of these characteristics. The food processing industry is regulated by the federal government, requiring that process contact surfaces be mechanically polished to a 150 grit. Fin-Tech currently provides this service to pipe, tube and fitting suppliers, fabricators, and end users for an array of vessels, pipes, pipe spools and fittings and fabricated mixing devices. Recently, questions have been raised about the ability of mechanically polished surfaces to resist bacterial growth as compared to that of electropolished surfaces. An article in the March 1998 issue of Chemical Engineering sites a study by the U.S. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at the Richard B. Russell Agricultural Research Center in Athens, Georgia. The study found that electropolished surfaces out performed all other types of surface finished including coated surfaces and mechanically polished surfaces. The article states the "following immersion, the number of bacteria on electropolished samples was only about 1/15th of the number on standard stainless steel." Ironically, the worst results were found on mechanically polished surfaces which is the current acceptable finish. For many of the same reasons the Food process industry polishes process surfaces, so does the pharmaceutical industry. Purity is the key ingredient in this process. For that reason electropolishing, which provides for an extremely pure microscopic surface, is recommended. Electropolishing can greatly reduce or eliminate the effect known as "rouging" in many pharmaceutical process environments.