THE ROLES OF WATER IN THE DECONTAMINATION PROCESS

The Roles of Water in the Decontamination Process

The Roles of Water in the Decontamination Process

Water impurities can jeopardize health, decrease decontamination effectiveness and shorten the useful life of instrumentation. Automated reprocessing equipment functionality, effectiveness and life span are also negatively impacted by impurities commonly found in water. The quality and consistency of the water used in a sterile processing department is critical. It is necessary for central service professionals to have a basic knowledge of various water impurities and their effects on instrument reprocessing. Additionally, by understanding the common water treatment options and the methods used to monitor these systems' performance, sterile processing professionals can ensure that appropriate water is being used in their decontamination process. decontamination process (Sittig, 1981).

The majority of the earth's surface is water. It is a molecule essential for life and carefully studied by science. Water can be found in three separate physical states. The liquid state is the most common form associated with water. The solid state Education & Training of water is called ice and the gaseous state is called water vapor or steam. Most chemicals exist in these three states, but water is unique in its physical properties. The liquid state of water is actually more dense than the solid state of water. Water is the only non-metallic substance to expand when it freezes (Phillips, 1987). This may seem like a nice feature of water when looking at an ice cube floating in a drink, but it is an essential requirement for aquatic life living in a lake that has frozen. This layer provides protection from extremes in temperature and allows aquatic life to survive changing seasons.

Water is an amazing solvent. A solvent can be defined as a liquid or gas that dissolves another substance (a solid, liquid or gas) into it. Solvents make it possible for two separate substances to become one solution. In general, water will dissolve almost anything to which it is exposed. Nature uses this phenomenon in many different types of reactions that are essential to life. The human body uses water to transport nutrients to cells and then uses it again to remove waste (Mullin, 1984). A glass of lemonade is another example, in which water is used as a solvent to combine water, sugar and lemon juice into one liquid. In the decontamination process for reusable medical instruments, water acts as a solvent to remove contamination from soiled instrumentation, preparing it for further treatment and ultimately reuse. Water's ability to act as a solvent is critical to life and also the reason it is rarely found in a pure form.

The decontamination process is without a doubt becoming the single most focused service area written about in the past couple of years. With today's advanced automated washers and numerous choices in cleaning aides along with the highly developed sonic washer's, one would believe that we have everything under control.

Chemical Addition

Detergents are formulated to improve the cleaning ability of water ...