Re: Sterilisation Dose

[pward@iastate.edu]

Don Jordan wrote:

> The "sterilization" dose appears to depend on how sterile you want . . .

(snip . . .)

Precisely.   Radiation sterilization is a probabilistic effect. 
It depends on how "sterile" you want the material, on the
bio-loading (how "dirty" it was to start with), and to some extent what
organisms are present.  Some organisms are more radiation resistant than
others.

For medical devices, which are pretty clean to start with, the
sterilization dose is about 5 Mrad (50 kGy).  This dose gives a 
theoretical f(0) value of about 30, which is roughly equal to steam 
autoclaving for 60 minutes. 

---
Paul Ward
pward@iastate.edu