Pacific Rubber & Packing joins OCP to push liquid-cooling seal cleanliness standards

Pacific Rubber & Packing has joined the Open Compute Project Foundation as a Bronze member and will work in the OCP Cooling Community on cleanliness standards for elastomeric seals in direct-to-chip liquid cooling. The move adds new contamination data to an area of data center design that has no published standard for how clean a wetted seal should be before it enters a cooling loop.

Why it matters: - Direct-to-chip liquid cooling depends on seals, gaskets and O-rings that can carry surface contamination into cooling loops. - PRP says existing checks do not measure what sits on a seal’s surface before installation. - A published cleanliness standard could reduce particulate contamination and microchannel fouling in AI infrastructure. - The issue matters most in systems where coolant runs within millimeters of high-value silicon.

What happened: - Pacific Rubber & Packing, Inc. said Oct. 9, 2026, that it joined the Open Compute Project Foundation as a Bronze member. - PRP will participate in OCP’s Cooling Community. - The company plans to help establish an incoming particulate cleanliness standard for elastomeric seals used in liquid-cooled AI infrastructure. - PRP is the maker of VeriClean Seals™ and has supplied precision sealing products to the semiconductor industry since 1979.

The details: - PRP says every direct-to-chip cooling loop depends on hundreds of seals, gaskets and O-rings. - PRP says each seal is typically qualified for coolant compatibility, inspected for gross defects and protected by a filter rating. - PRP says no published standard defines how clean a wetted seal should be before it enters a loop. - Micah Silverman, PRP’s lead R&D engineer, has data showing three contamination classes on seal surfaces: insoluble particulate such as dirt, dust and carbon black; oils and release films from manufacturing and handling; and living bioburden. - PRP says contamination levels vary widely across lots, bags and manufacturers. - PRP says the cleanest and dirtiest seal in a single bag can differ by orders of magnitude. - PRP says a meaningful share of seal-borne particulate is smaller than typical loop filter ratings and can pass through to contribute to microchannel fouling. - PRP describes a process it calls cyclic contamination displacement, in which a seal shifts during pressurization cycles and exposes surface area that the initial flush did not reach. - PRP says contamination can continue entering the loop long after commissioning. - PRP says VeriClean Seals™ are processed in an ISO Class 7 cleanroom using a patent-pending particulate-reduction process. - PRP says the process removes up to 95% of surface particulate contaminants before a seal enters a cooling loop. - PRP says each order ships with documented cleanliness verification. - More information, including PRP’s published cleanliness thresholds and the whitepaper "The Hidden Costs of Contamination in Liquid-Cooled Systems," is available at more information. - PRP says the company is headquartered in San Carlos, California, and serves semiconductor, data center, medical device, biopharma, aerospace and energy customers. - PRP says it operates ISO Class 7 cleanrooms with in-house precision cleaning and certified cleanliness processing.

Between the lines: - PRP is trying to turn seal cleanliness from a materials issue into a measurable infrastructure standard. - Joining OCP gives the company a venue where operators, suppliers and designers can align on what “clean” should mean in liquid cooling. - The data center industry is under pressure to make cooling systems reliable enough for denser AI workloads, which raises the cost of contamination failures.

What's next: - PRP will contribute its contamination data to OCP’s knowledge base. - The OCP Cooling Community may use that input to shape an incoming particulate cleanliness standard for wetted seals. - Engineers designing liquid-cooled systems will be watching for clearer criteria on seal cleanliness and verification. - PRP directs readers to pacificrubber.com and vericlean.one for additional company and data center-specific information.