Pacific Rubber & Packing brings cleaned seals to OCP Global Summit

Pacific Rubber & Packing will showcase VeriClean Seals at the Open Compute Project Global Summit in San Jose Oct. 12-15 as data center rack densities rise and liquid cooling reliability becomes a bigger concern. The company is pitching surface-verified seal cleanliness as a fix for a gap it says the industry has not yet fully specified.

Why it matters: - AI data centers are pushing rack densities higher, which raises the stakes for liquid-cooling reliability. - Pacific Rubber & Packing is trying to make seal cleanliness a defined part of cooling-system specification, not an assumed byproduct of manufacturing. - The company is positioning surface-verified elastomer cleanliness as a way to reduce contamination risk near high-value GPUs, cold plates, and pumps.

What happened: - Pacific Rubber & Packing, Inc. will take VeriClean Seals™ to the 2026 Open Compute Project Global Summit on Oct. 12-15 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. - The company is scheduling meetings with cooling OEMs, CDU and cold-plate vendors, hyperscale operators, and engineers responsible for fluid-flow architecture. - The summit theme is “Scaling Innovation for the AI Era.” - PRP is based in San Carlos, California.

The details: - PRP says the cooling industry has a specification gap because engineers specify elastomer family, coolant chemists specify compatibility, and cleanliness is not tightly controlled. - The company says particulate load on seal surfaces can seed bubble nucleation, obstruct microchannels, degrade thermal capacity, accelerate pump wear, and shorten cold-plate life. - PRP cites industry research estimating particulate fouling can add 5-8°C of thermal penalty and cut GPU throughput by 10-15% under moderate throttling. - Bill Sharratt, president and CEO of Pacific Rubber & Packing, said a seal sits directly upstream of the most expensive silicon in the building and that surface-verified cleanliness is “reliability insurance.” - VeriClean Seals are elastomer seals engineered for coolant purity, thermal stability, and reliability. - Each seal is measured, cleaned, and documented for surface particulate contamination before entering the loop. - PRP processes the seals in ISO Class 7 cleanrooms. - The company says VeriClean delivers documented particle-risk reduction of 60%-90% versus commodity product, verified by optical microscopy and laser particle counting from 1.3 µm across 16 size bins. - PRP says compound, durometer, dimensions, and chemical compatibility do not change, so existing BOMs do not need requalification. - Each lot ships with a QR-coded certificate and chain-of-custody record. - PRP has supplied precision elastomers to semiconductor, aerospace, and high-purity process markets since 1979. - The company is applying that approach to the Technology Cooling System and Facility Water System interface now being standardized across the OCP Cooling Environments community and ASHRAE TC 9.9 liquid classes. - PRP says standards for coolant cleanliness are emerging, while seal cleanliness specifications remain largely unaddressed. - Meeting topics at the summit include where seal specification and contamination control belong inside design authority, how non-integral particulate load is measured before a rack or CDU goes live, compatibility as coolant chemistry shifts beyond standard glycol, and whether the industry can build a common cleanliness spec for wetted elastomers. - PRP says product data, the VCQ qualification program, and an ROI calculator are available at vericlean.one. - To schedule a meeting during the summit, contact michelle.murray-smith@pacificrubber.com or (650) 595-5888.

Between the lines: - PRP is framing seal cleanliness as a reliability issue on par with coolant chemistry and hardware design. - The message targets a market where small contamination problems can translate into expensive GPU throttling and downtime. - The company is also trying to influence how the industry writes specs before liquid cooling becomes even more standardized.

What's next: - PRP will use the summit meetings to push for broader adoption of its cleanliness approach in AI data center cooling. - The company appears to be aiming for a common specification for wetted elastomers as the OCP and ASHRAE ecosystems continue to develop liquid-cooling standards. - Interested attendees can contact the company ahead of the event or review its product material online.