autoclaving guide - (Jun/17/2014 )

Hallo,

Has anyone a good guide on autoclaving?

Some people state its 15 minutes at 120°C , some state its 20 minutes at 120°C, other state its 15 minutes at 121°C....

I can google it myself and I am able to find those date, but I cant seem to find any good "evidence" or a nice guide/book on this subject.

Anyone a good link?

Hi,

I followed Hirayama autoclave manual. Online manual can be downloaded from this link (http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/bosch/facilities/molecular-biology/sterilisation/hirayama_hv_series_manual.pdf).

For a more detailed explanation you can start with (https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/cdb-core-lab/autoclave-service) that showed liquid volume versus autoclaving time needed to achieve 1 to 10^6 Serility Assurance Level (SAL; see wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterility_assurance_level).

I've also found a paper regarding "top 10 considerations when validating autoclave" (http://www.pharmout.net/downloads/white_paper_autoclave_validation.pdf)

I would just stick to the Hirayama or whichever brand of autoclave you are using because most of the time, we prepare our solutions in "sterile" distilled/deionized water. No need to really go for high SAL.

P.S. 121°C at 15 min is the minimum (and also suitable for media that can't withstand longer sterilization).

Cheers