What do you know about steam sterilization?

Steam sterilization is a method of eliminating bacteria or microorganisms with high-temperature steam. It is required that the steam pressure is 205.8kpa, the temperature reaches above 132 ℃ and lasts for 10 minutes to kill all microorganisms with tenacious resistance. Because the ordinary steam often contains impurities, and in order to protect the steam boiler, a small amount of volatile amine is added to the water, which is unfavorable to the patient for the medical equipment with sterile tissue.

Therefore, we will use pure steam, which has strong penetration. Protein and protoplast colloid are used for denaturation and solidification under hot and humid conditions. The enzyme system is easy to be damaged. The steam enters the cell and condenses into water, which can release potential heat, improve the temperature and enhance the bactericidal power.

The pure steam sterilization equipment can be used for aseptic surgery and medical instruments, which not only achieves the ideal sterilization effect, but also controls the unnecessary operation cost.

The sterilization effect of steam can be checked by the following three methods:

1. Procedure monitoring

Indicate whether the sterilization equipment works normally according to the gauges (pressure gauge, thermometer, chronometer), charts, indicator needles, alarms, etc. installed on the sterilizer.

2. Chemical indication inspection

The characteristics of discoloration or deformation of chemical indicators under certain temperature and action time are used to judge whether they meet the parameters required for sterilization.

3. Biological indicator monitoring

Heat resistant non pathogenic bacterial spores were used as indicator bacteria to determine the effect of thermal sterilization. The strain uses thermophilic lipobacillus. Its spores have strong resistance to heat, and its heat death time is similar to that of botulinum, which has the strongest resistance among pathogenic microorganisms.