Research on Strong Alkaline Electrolyzed Water in Medical Instrument Cleaning

Research on Strong Alkaline Electrolyzed Water in Medical Instrument Cleaning

Medical devices refer to all kinds of devices used in the medical field, including various devices for clinical diagnosis and treatment, medical experiments and clinical examinations.

Medical device cleaning refers to the process of removing the dirt (including blood, tissue, protein, etc.) and some microorganisms attached to the surface of medical devices, utensils and articles. Targets to be cleaned and removed: proteins, carbohydrates, hemoglobin, lipids, inorganic ions, microbial loads, endotoxins, etc.

Medical device cleaning methods mainly include manual cleaning and mechanical cleaning.

The manual cleaning method is mainly suitable for stains that are difficult to remove by mechanical cleaning. Before using mechanical cleaning, the manual cleaning method is used for pretreatment. Targeted removal of wet and dry blood stains, stains, rust, scale, chemical residues, medical glue residues, etc. on instruments.

Mechanical cleaning is suitable for the cleaning of conventional instruments. The mechanized cleaning process can improve work efficiency. The solidified procedure eliminates the instability of human factors in manual cleaning, ensures the quality of instrument cleaning and disinfection, and reduces occupational exposure, infection and environmental pollution that may be caused by chemical soaking and disinfection. pollute.

Commonly used mechanical cleaning refers to ultrasonic cleaning. Ultrasonic cleaning refers to the use of ultrasonic waves to vibrate in water to produce "air effect" for cleaning. It is suitable for washing precision and complex instruments.

Cleaning is the most important link in the entire workflow of the disinfection supply center. Because the quality of instrument cleaning is directly related to the quality of sterilized items, the percentage of sterilization directly affects the safety of the entire medical care. The used instruments are seriously polluted, and many instruments contain blood, pus, dry excrement and secretions. If the cleaning is not thorough, it will make it difficult to sterilize or even cause sterilization failure. Domestic surveys have proved that some occult blood positives still exist on some sterilized instruments, especially those with teeth, gaps, pores and joints are difficult to clean, which may easily lead to incomplete cleaning. Incomplete cleaning of proteinaceous organic substances contaminated on medical devices has a protective effect on microorganisms and may easily cause sterilization failure. The reasons for incomplete cleaning of instruments are mainly due to insufficient attention to cleaning, insufficient brushing, neglect and omission of difficult-to-clean parts, improper detergent or cleaning methods, etc.

In 2014, Li Xinwu and others from the Environmental and Health-related Product Safety Institute of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention used alkaline electrolyzed water to study the cleaning effect of medical equipment:

The experimenter used alkaline electrolyzed water (pH value 11.62 ~ 11.66, ORP value -830.0 ~ -851.2) plus ultrasonic method to clean solid smooth, solid toothed and lumen medical devices, and the cleaning effect was compared with conventional Method, alkaline water without ultrasonic method and the control group were compared; at the same time, the corrosion of metal soaked in alkaline water was tested.

The test results are as follows:

① Cleaning effect of solid smooth instruments

The cleaning effect of medical scissors, compared among the 4 groups, the cleaning effect of alkaline water plus ultrasonic cleaning and without ultrasonic cleaning is basically the same, but the cleaning effect of the first two groups is better than the conventional cleaning method.

②Cleaning effect of solid toothed instruments

The cleaning effect of the curved hemostat, compared among the 4 groups, the cleaning effect of the alkaline water plus ultrasonic cleaning method is better than the conventional method and the alkaline water without ultrasonic cleaning method, and the cleaning effect of the latter two is basically the same

③Cleaning effect of luminal instruments

Vaginal douche cleaning effect, comparison between 4 groups, alkaline water plus ultrasonic group, alkaline water without ultrasonic group and conventional method group, 3 groups of cleaning effects, pairwise comparison, it shows that for lumen devices, 3 cleaning methods The effect is basically the same.

④Corrosivity of alkaline water to metal

Corrosion tests on 4 kinds of metals prove that alkaline water has basically no corrosion to stainless steel and copper, mild corrosion to carbon steel, and severe corrosion to aluminum.

The results of this study prove that alkaline electrolyzed water has a better cleaning effect on various types of medical instruments, and it is better than the conventional cleaning method using enzyme-containing detergents. If ultrasonic treatment is added, the cleaning and decontamination effect of alkaline electrolyzed water will decrease. Better; it has basically no corrosion effect on stainless steel and copper, has little environmental pollution and low cost of use, so it can be completely used for cleaning and decontamination of medical equipment.