Sustainable Procurement of Laboratory Autoclaves

Paul Richardson, Priorclave Ltd.
Bernie Youngblood, Prioclave North America. Inc.

As the cost of energy continues to rise and research budgets grow ever tighter, your lab's autoclave is an excellent place to create savings without compromising on usability or results.

In a 2011 audit, researchers with the British Higher Education for Environmental Performance Improvement (HEEPI) project's S-Lab initiative found that the University of Edinburgh's Cancer Research Centre's pair of large medical-grade sterilizers accounted for 41 percent of that facility's total annual energy usage. That's more than a half-million kWh (kilowatt-hours) used *solely* for steam sterilization of medical instruments, glassware, research materials, and biomedical waste. The average American home would take 45 years to consume that much energy. This extreme example serves as a reminder of how resource-intensive high-volume, high-throughput medical-grade autoclaves can be.

HOSPITAL STERILIZERS IN THE RESEARCH LAB?

The most common autoclave seen in laboratories today is a rectangular medical-grade steam sterilizer. These sterilizers have rectangular pressure vessels because they were designed for the high-volume, high-throughput demands of modern hospital operations, where loads tend to consist of trays of medical instruments, or medical waste bags packed into reusable rectangular loading cassettes. As demand for steam sterilization rose in other industries, manufacturers serving the medical market simply scaled down their existing designs to fit within the tighter confines of research facilities. But research labs are not hospitals. High-volume, high-throughput, round-the-clock operations are the exception, not the rule. In most cases, research facilities are running fewer than five sterilization cycles per day.

RESEARCH-GRADE AUTOCLAVES FOR RESEARCH LABS

Research-grade autoclaves were designed specifically for research lab use, and can perform all the same functions as medical-grade autoclaves. Due to the more natural shape of their cylindrical pressure vessel, however, they require neither a reinforcing rib cage nor steam jacket, and have far less mass to heat and to cool. They rely on integrated in-chamber steam generators, which require fewer moving parts, waste little heat, and are designed to be completely powered down when not in use, consuming zero energy. In fact, the steam generators built into research-grade autoclaves are rated to draw half the power of the generators bolted on to medical-grade sterilizers.

Because of their design, rectangular medical-grade autoclaves will invariably be heavier and use at least twice as much energy as their cylindrical research-grade peers. While this trade-off may be worthwhile in a hospital setting, it can prove tremendously wasteful in the lab.

Biographies:

Paul Richardson has worked in the life science industry for over 30 years. With a background in engineering he has worked for different UK companies in many aspects of laboratory autoclaving from manufacture through servicing and technical sales and from this wealth of experience has a deep knowledge of all technical and practical aspects of laboratory autoclave use and specification. Paul is currently Business Development Manager at Priorclave Ltd in the UK and is primarily responsible for developing and maintaining Priorclave's extensive network of distributors around the world. Paul is currently the UK Principal Expert on the International Electrotechnical Commission's Technical Committee 66 Working Group 7 Sterilisers and Washer Disinfectors currently working on updating the IEC/EN61010 standard for Laboratory Equipment in general and Sterilisers in particular.

Bernie Youngblood biography to come.

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