Process
The Dry-Heat sterilization process is accomplished by conduction; that is where heat is absorbed by the exterior surface of an item and then passed inward to the next layer. Eventually, the entire item reaches the proper temperature needed to achieve sterilization. The proper time and temperature for Dry-Heat sterilization is 160°C (320°F) for 2 hours or 170°C (340°F) for 1 hour. Instruments should be dry before sterilization since water will interfere with the process. Dry-heat destroys microorganisms by causing coagulation of proteins.
The presence of moisture, such as in steam sterilization, significantly speeds up heat penetration.
See also: Moist heat sterilizationThere are two types of Hot-Air convection (Convection refers to the circulation of heated air within the chamber of the oven) sterilizers:
- Gravity convection
- Mechanical convection
Read more about this topic: Dry Heat Sterilization
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“It haunts me, the passage of time. I think time is a merciless thing. I think life is a process of burning oneself out and time is the fire that burns you. But I think the spirit of man is a good adversary.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The moralist and the revolutionary are constantly undermining one another. Marx exploded a hundred tons of dynamite beneath the moralist position, and we are still living in the echo of that tremendous crash. But already, somewhere or other, the sappers are at work and fresh dynamite is being tamped in place to blow Marx at the moon. Then Marx, or somebody like him, will come back with yet more dynamite, and so the process continues, to an end we cannot foresee.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)