{"id":1180,"date":"2018-11-29T12:33:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T12:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/priorclavena.com\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2021-05-17T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T17:15:06","slug":"lab-autoclave-procedure-the-futility-of-foil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2018\/11\/29\/lab-autoclave-procedure-the-futility-of-foil\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab Autoclave Procedure Best Practices: The Futility of Foil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2018\/10\/18\/autoclave-sterilization-tips-avoid-foil\/\">many justifications for crimping foil loosely over the mouths of containers before autoclaving<\/a>. The most common\u2014and seemingly most reasonable\u2014is that this common autoclave procedure keeps viable spores from drifting onto the sterilized items.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">That seems to make sense:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>If I want to keep dust off the the sofa stored in my garage, I drape it with a sheet, don&#8217;t I?<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But Philip Berriman doesn&#8217;t buy it.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Phil is an instrumentation technician at California State University (Fullerton), and spends all day working with autoclaves.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>To him, the &#8220;spore shield&#8221; foil rationale highlights the futility\u2014and outright folly\u2014of using foil like this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><i> Putting foil over the mouths of containers decreases the likelihood of those items being properly sterilized to begin with\u2014and does nothing to protect them from spores.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>Bad Autoclave Procedure \u2014 Foil Decreases the Efficacy of Sterilization<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b> <\/b>\u201cWhen you say \u2018loose\u2019,&#8221; Phil explains, &#8220;you really need to mean \u2018loose\u2019\u2014there have to be air gaps.\u201d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Without air gaps, the steam cannot get access to the interior of the vessel you&#8217;re trying to sterilize.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The likely result: <em>a non-sterile load<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The only reason a steam autoclave can sterilize a load at 121\u00baC in just 15 to 20 minutes is because steam is remarkably effective at transferring thermal energy (compared to dry air, which is an excellent insulator).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>A <a href=\"https:\/\/priorclavena.com\/steam-autoclave-sterilizers\/dry-heat-sterilizers-vs-steam-autoclaves\/\">dry-heat sterilizer<\/a>\u00a0set to 121\u00baC will take upwards of 12 hours to sterilize the same load.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In order to assure sterilization, your foil needs to be crimped on loosely enough to provide nice air flow.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>(People rarely do so; the picture above is indicative of what Phil often sees.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But as that flask cools, it&#8217;s going to draw in air\u2014regardless of how tightly you mash the foil around the lip of the flask.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In effect, the cooling flask hoovers up a nice big sample of all the spores floating around your lab.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8220;One of the reasons that the &#8216;loose foil&#8217; habit seems somewhat futile to me,&#8221; Phil concludes, &#8220;is that the practice means the user is more paranoid about what might land on their &#8216;sterile&#8217; items than about whether the items ever became sterile in the first place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That said, your research protocol dictates the features of your autoclave. At Priorclave, we aren&#8217;t experts in your process and field. But we&#8217;re experts in building reliable, customizable autoclaves. We offer our customers lifetime support, and our commitment to making sure you\u2019re able to get the most the best results from your Priorclave every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are many justifications for crimping foil loosely over the mouths of containers before autoclaving. The most common\u2014and seemingly most reasonable\u2014is that this common autoclave procedure keeps viable spores from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[359,357,361,363,355,364,365,74,23],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lab-autoclaves","tag-abandon-all-foil","tag-autoclave-procedure","tag-autoclave-tips","tag-bad-habits","tag-best-practices","tag-good-habits","tag-lab-best-practices","tag-lab-practices","tag-research-grade-autoclave"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lab Autoclave Procedure Best Practices: The Futility of Foil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A common autoclave procedure \u2014 like putting foil over the mouths of beakers may decrease the reliability of sterilization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2018\/11\/29\/lab-autoclave-procedure-the-futility-of-foil\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lab Autoclave Procedure Best Practices: The Futility of Foil\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A common autoclave procedure \u2014 like putting foil over the mouths of beakers may decrease the reliability of sterilization.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2018\/11\/29\/lab-autoclave-procedure-the-futility-of-foil\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Priorclave - 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