{"id":2830,"date":"2019-03-14T16:44:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T16:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/priorclavena.com\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2023-04-20T16:32:15","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T16:32:15","slug":"autoclaving-big-beakers-and-flasks-use-the-vacuum-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.priorclave.com\/en-us\/2019\/03\/14\/autoclaving-big-beakers-and-flasks-use-the-vacuum-function\/","title":{"rendered":"Autoclaving Big Beakers and Flasks? Use the Vacuum Function!"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re regularly autoclaving large Erlenmeyer flasks, graduated cylinders, or beakers\u2014and it’s not practical to run the entire load lying horizontally<\/a>\u2014a vacuum function is vital to your consistent success.<\/p>\n

Why Autoclaving Containers is a Hard<\/h2>\n

Autoclaving any container is inherently challenging\u2014even when that container is open.\u00a0 <\/span>Why?\u00a0 <\/span>Dense cold air tends to pool at the bottom of your beakers and flasks.\u00a0 <\/span>Steam can trap this in the beaker, creating cold pockets that are unlikely to reliably sterilize.<\/p>\n

To address this, Priorclave includes Freesteaming<\/b> and Pulsed Freesteaming<\/b><\/a> as standard functions on every autoclave.\u00a0 <\/span>During freesteaming, the autoclave holds open its chamber vent while flooding the chamber with steam.\u00a0 <\/span>Owing to Priorclave’s pressure vessel design and construction, this churns the air in the chamber.\u00a0 <\/span>It’s a fairly effective way to clear the chamber of cold air pockets and saturate many different types of loads, without adding any additional moving parts.\u00a0 <\/span>(Pulsed freesteaming<\/i><\/b> is very similar, but pulses the steam stream, creating additional turbulence.)<\/p>\n

As Philip Berriman, an instrumentation technician at California State University (Fullerton), notes \u201cPriorclaves really are better than most when you use the freesteaming, especially if you use pulsed freesteaming.\u00a0 <\/span>It does a good job of mixing the air up in there.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But even pulsed freesteaming can’t cure all ills.\u00a0 <\/span>Freesteaming has difficult mixing the air pooled inside flasks and beakers\u2014especially narrow flasks and graduated cylinders.\u00a0 <\/span>Covering the mouths of beakers with foil while autoclaving<\/a>\u2014a common practice in many labs\u2014further lowers the odds of your load sterilizing properly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In running a series of trails, Phil found that large vertical flasks covered with loose foil always<\/i> failed to sterilize during a standard gravity cycle<\/strong> (that is, one with no vacuum stage)\u2014even with a five minute freesteaming period.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Removing the foil and keeping the freesteaming stage improved outcomes greatly: 60% of the beakers were sterilized by the end of the standard cycle<\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/span>Nonetheless, without using a vacuum cycle, vertically oriented Erlenmeyer flasks always failed to sterilize, even when no foil was present and freesteaming was used.<\/p>\n

Vacuum Autoclaving Increases Reliable Sterilization of Flasks and Beakers<\/h2>\n

Using a non-vacuum cycle, foil covered flasks were only successfully sterilized about 40% of the time.\u00a0 <\/span>Adding just one pre-cycle vacuum pulse improved sterilization by about 90%. \u00a0 <\/span>Using three pre-cycle vacuum pulses virtually guaranteed successful sterilization.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Avoiding foil<\/a>\u00a0and autoclaving beakers lying horizontally are best practices\u2014but, if for some reason, that’s not possible in your lab, \u201ca vacuum is able to overcome many bad practices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re regularly autoclaving large Erlenmeyer flasks, graduated cylinders, or beakers\u2014and it’s not practical to run the entire load lying horizontally\u2014a vacuum function is vital to your consistent success. Why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[359,382,383,376,384,72,385,284,386,387],"class_list":["post-2830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lab-autoclaves","tag-abandon-all-foil","tag-autoclave-design","tag-autoclave-features","tag-autoclave-functions","tag-autoclaving","tag-autoclaving-tips","tag-custom-autoclaving","tag-gravity-cycle","tag-vacuum","tag-vacuum-cycles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAutoclaving Big Beakers and Flasks? 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