Autoclaves and the need for sterilization are strongly associated with healthcare. So much so that many people presume that the only autoclaves on the market are those designed for medical facilities.

Lee Oakley, Priorclave UK Sales Director, sees autoclaves in all sorts of environments: “An autoclave itself might be really boring. But the settings where autoclaves are used are so diverse. For instance, I went to a university lab that uses autoclaves. There in the lab was a cadaver next to me while I was taking measurements. And then in the afternoon I went to an ice cream-making facility, which also uses autoclaves, and was offered an ice cream sample. So: dead body in the morning, ice cream in the afternoon.”

Four Autoclave Applications That You Might Not Expect

Food and Beverage Industries

From domestic rum distilleries in Guyana, to food processing plants, to breweries, the food and beverage industry relies heavily on autoclave sterilization. In the food and beverage industry we’ve found that autoclaves often need to serve double-duty. They perform both standard lab tasks (like processing waste loads, media prep, and sterilizing glassware) and are used to emulate the performance of the large-scale high-throughput steam sterilizers, autoclaves, and retorts used in food production. In these situations a non-jacketed lab autoclave is more efficient and convenient. They require less maintenance, are easier to operate, less expensive to maintain, and more reliable over a longer working life, when compared to similar-sized medical-style rectangular-vessel units.

• Meat Processing Plants: Pilgrim’s Pride is the largest chicken supplier in the U.S. Their quality assurance department struggled with its medical-grade tabletop sterilizer. The heavy workload resulted in maintenance and performance problems, which caused frustrating downtime. By switching to a research-grade Priorclave autoclave, Pilgrim’s Pride substantially improved productivity, even as workloads increased.
• Breweries: Priorclave’s autoclaves power microbiology work and quality assurance in breweries at every scale. That includes facilities run by Heineken, Carlsberg, Molson Coors, City Brewing Company, and dozens more.
• Chocolate Production: World-famous chocolate manufacturer Nestlé has been using a Priorclave autoclave to experiment with new strategies for pre-processing raw cocoa beans. This improves the beans’ color and flavor, and increases yields by making processing easier and less wasteful.

Manufacturing

Manufacturers find a range of uses for autoclaves in production, research, and quality assurance. Time and again, Priorclave has demonstrated superior performance in manufacturing industries. Goodyear and Sage Automotive Interiors—among many other manufacturers—use Priorclave autoclaves to test the effects of heat, time, and wear and tear on the longevity and durability of their products.

Life Sciences, Pharma, and Biotech Programs

From culture media sterilization to prosthetics testing, steam sterilization is essential to the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries. It’s no secret that research and development are not cheap. At U.S. universities alone, R&D spending totaled $97.8 billion in 2022. Labs need to make the most of their research dollars. Priorclave’s research-grade autoclaves are built to be efficient, reliable, highly flexible, and offer years of steady service

Universities and private labs are using their Priorclaves to develop sterile packaging for medical products (like contact lenses), test and improve the lifespan of prosthetic devices and surgical implants, and make medical advances (for example, using genetically-altered strains of bacteria to target and destroy prostate tumors). With programmable control systems, researchers can customize temperature, pressure ramps, dwell times, cycle length, repetitions, monitoring and more—all while using substantially less water and energy.

Government Agencies

Countless government agencies rely on non-jacketed, non-medical autoclaves. Priorclave works with federal agencies like the FDA and the Agricultural Research Service to meet their broad and evolving demands, from sterilizing soil substrate to preparing large waste loads for safe disposal. For years, the U.S. Army has had a Priorclave installed at their Aberdeen Proving Ground, where it is used for accelerated aging and destruction testing of ballistic materials.

Priorclave regularly works with government agencies, organizations, and researchers throughout the world. These include the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, the Water and Sewage Company of St. Lucia (WASCO), and more.

Reach Out Today to Explore Priorclave’s Diverse Applications

Since 1988, Priorclave has been supplying non-jacketed, research-grade autoclaves to often neglected markets (research, education, industry, and innovators) in nations on every continent. Wherever you are, we are as close as a call or a click.