{"id":1254,"date":"2019-02-14T16:28:15","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T16:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/priorclavena.com\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2020-01-30T21:43:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T21:43:39","slug":"laboratory-autoclave-procedure-thermal-inertia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2019\/02\/14\/laboratory-autoclave-procedure-thermal-inertia\/","title":{"rendered":"Laboratory Autoclave Procedure Warning: Do You Account for &#8220;Thermal Inertia&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Many labs don&#8217;t heat large liquid loads long enough to assure sterilization. The standard autoclave procedure is &#8220;hold a load at 121\u00baC for 20 minutes to assure sterilization.&#8221;\u00a0 This is endorsed by <i>everyone<\/i>, from the United States Pharmacopeial Convention and Food &amp; Drug Administration, to the Department of Health &amp; Human Services and every university on the planet.\u00a0 But that recommendation assumes that steam can <b><i>fully saturate<\/i><\/b> the load (thus heating the whole load\u2014not just the chamber\u2014to 121\u00baC).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>By way of comparison, a dry-heat sterilizer set to 121\u00baC will take upwards of <b>12 hours<\/b> to sterilize the same load.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>If part of your load is shielded from the steam, then you&#8217;re looking at <i>hours<\/i> to assure sterilization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">While every lab is aware of the hazards of air pockets preventing steam penetration, we&#8217;re finding that many autoclave procedures fail think past &#8220;get the chamber to 121\u00baC for 20 minutes&#8221; when running liquid and media loads.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">Autoclave Procedure: Taking Thermal Inertia into Account<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">As Philip Berriman, instrumentation technician at California State University (Fullerton), notes, &#8220;Most people, as soon as the chamber says 121 degrees, they begin their countdown.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>But we&#8217;ve found that, in some cases, it\u2019s another whole hour to reach sterilization temperatures in the load itself.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>For example, if you pack a 320 L autoclave with one-liter bottles of media,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>it adds another whole hour\u2014beyond the initial 20 minutes that it would take to run a load of dry beakers\u2014before spores are killed in a spore test.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>It takes that long for the fluid to heat up, because you have so much fluid, and water heats really slowly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The solution?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><i> Validate your loads regularly.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/b>If running a full load of growth media is a regular task in your lab, then run a validation load quarterly: Load your autoclave up, place a spore test vial near center of mass of the load (or as close as practical), run your load, and make sure your assumptions are valid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many labs don&#8217;t heat large liquid loads long enough to assure sterilization. The standard autoclave procedure is &#8220;hold a load at 121\u00baC for 20 minutes to assure sterilization.&#8221;\u00a0 This is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,217,73,69],"tags":[357,355,365,378,379,71,380,381],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-loading-autoclaves","category-horizontal-autoclaves","category-lab-autoclaves","category-large-capacity-autoclaves","tag-autoclave-procedure","tag-best-practices","tag-lab-best-practices","tag-lab-procedure","tag-steam-saturation","tag-steam-sterilizer","tag-thermal-inertia","tag-thermal-load"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Laboratory Autoclave Procedure Warning: Do You Account for &quot;Thermal Inertia&quot;?<\/title>\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\/2019\/02\/14\/laboratory-autoclave-procedure-thermal-inertia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laboratory Autoclave Procedure Warning: Do You Account for &quot;Thermal Inertia&quot;?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many labs don&#8217;t heat large liquid loads long enough to assure sterilization. The standard autoclave procedure is &#8220;hold a load at 121\u00baC for 20 minutes to assure sterilization.&#8221;\u00a0 This is [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2019\/02\/14\/laboratory-autoclave-procedure-thermal-inertia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Priorclave - United States\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-14T16:28:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-01-30T21:43:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/08\/laboratory-autoclave-c40-4-compact-40-illustration-with-500mL-flasks-1.gif\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"803\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"791\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Priorclave North America\" \/>\n<meta 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