Opening autoclave - (Jun/24/2014 )
Dear all, if you sterilise something and the autoclave is still at 96-99°C , do you already open the autoclave?
I am not talking about safety, this is not an issue , there is no pressure and its safe to open it. I am however talking about "is it good" for the materials inside? For solid stuff it does not matter, but for liquids ? Is the sudden drop in temperature when taking thins out perhaps a problem?
Its not a problem, but you might, if the temperature is too high get a boil-over when you go to shift the bottles.
You might loose a bit of fluid to evaporation too.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Not sure why some people in the lab insisted on not opening it because it would be bad for the media.
bob1 on Tue Jun 24 08:17:55 2014 said:
Its not a problem, but you might, if the temperature is too high get a boil-over when you go to shift the bottles.
You might loose a bit of fluid to evaporation too.
Media are the most sensitive to these sorts of things - minor variations in salt concentration can make a big difference to how well your cultures grow.
Loss of liquid by evaporation would lead to increased salt concentrations - if you close the bottles pretty much immediately it won't be too much of a problem.
I can hardly imagine that this would make such a big difference for yeast and bacteria.
I can also not imagine you would get so much evaporation! I do however close the bottles right after I open the autoclave, so normally there is no evaporation.
bob1 on Fri Jun 27 23:27:59 2014 said:
Media are the most sensitive to these sorts of things - minor variations in salt concentration can make a big difference to how well your cultures grow.
Loss of liquid by evaporation would lead to increased salt concentrations - if you close the bottles pretty much immediately it won't be too much of a problem.
reading your reply back: what is it that you actually mean with this?
Boil over because you shift the bottles?
bob1 on Tue Jun 24 08:17:55 2014 said:
Its not a problem, but you might, if the temperature is too high get a boil-over when you go to shift the bottles.
You might loose a bit of fluid to evaporation too.
It's called superheating - you can quite commonly get this in microwaves, so you may have seen it there. It's where the liquid looks like it isn't boiling, but in reality it is actually above boiling point, so if you move it or bump it, it creates cavitation that causes nucleation points for bubbles that then cause the liquid to boil very very rapidly (sometimes almost explosively) so it will come out the top of the bottle at >100 C.
Ok, thanks a lot.
Is it dangerous? Explosive? Can the bottle explode?
So its best to wait a bit longer to open it!
bob1 on Sun Jun 29 21:13:26 2014 said:
It's called superheating - you can quite commonly get this in microwaves, so you may have seen it there. It's where the liquid looks like it isn't boiling, but in reality it is actually above boiling point, so if you move it or bump it, it creates cavitation that causes nucleation points for bubbles that then cause the liquid to boil very very rapidly (sometimes almost explosively) so it will come out the top of the bottle at >100 C.
bioke on Mon Jun 30 18:50:31 2014 said:
Ok, thanks a lot.
Is it dangerous? Explosive? Can the bottle explode?
So its best to wait a bit longer to open it!
bob1 on Sun Jun 29 21:13:26 2014 said:
It's called superheating - you can quite commonly get this in microwaves, so you may have seen it there. It's where the liquid looks like it isn't boiling, but in reality it is actually above boiling point, so if you move it or bump it, it creates cavitation that causes nucleation points for bubbles that then cause the liquid to boil very very rapidly (sometimes almost explosively) so it will come out the top of the bottle at >100 C.
It's dangerous when the hot fluid gets in your face or other body parts, when it leaves the flask during the boilover (similar you can see when you melt agarose in a microwave and it's hot enough to boil but starts boiling first immediately when you shake or stir it a bit). The flasks won't explode (only during autoclaving when you closed the lid completely).
hobglobin on Mon Jun 30 18:57:22 2014 said:
bioke on Mon Jun 30 18:50:31 2014 said:
Ok, thanks a lot.
Is it dangerous? Explosive? Can the bottle explode?
So its best to wait a bit longer to open it!
bob1 on Sun Jun 29 21:13:26 2014 said:
It's called superheating - you can quite commonly get this in microwaves, so you may have seen it there. It's where the liquid looks like it isn't boiling, but in reality it is actually above boiling point, so if you move it or bump it, it creates cavitation that causes nucleation points for bubbles that then cause the liquid to boil very very rapidly (sometimes almost explosively) so it will come out the top of the bottle at >100 C.
It's dangerous when the hot fluid gets in your face or other body parts, when it leaves the flask during the boilover (similar you can see when you melt agarose in a microwave and it's hot enough to boil but starts boiling first immediately when you shake or stir it a bit). The flasks won't explode (only during autoclaving when you closed the lid completely).
Oh ok!
Thats not an issue. I always close the bottles when they are still standing in the autoclave. Never had problems with liquid coming out of the bottle.
Just to be sure, I'll wait a bit longer in the future.