Hello. I need to swab a surface to collect the sample that I will analyze using a Salmonella detection kit. How can I sterilize the cotton balls I was planning to use with an autoclave? The autoclave doesn't have a dry cycle. I was thinking of putting the cotton balls inside a borosilicate bottle and autoclave, but is it safe to do so? Will cotton burn?
Thanks in advance.
I recommend you put the cotton balls in an autoclave paper bag. use the dry (solid) autoclave cycle.
you can also autoclave some forceps in a metal box (as would for animal surgery).
After the autoclave put everything in a hot desiccation chamber (60C) for at least 3 h.
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The tips of the forceps will be clean and sterile. you can use those to take out the cotton balls in a biosafety cabinet.
Open the autoclave paper bag, hold its opening horizontally. Aseptically clip out a ball with the forceps' ends. This should not be too difficult to achieve.
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The autoclave temperature is merely 121C, for 20 min at high pressure. This normally will not cause a fire.
Best
I did put some of them in a long test tube and used a piece of cotton to close the test tube. Hot steam can pass over the cotton an sterile the cotton balls.
It was easy to perform and operate.
I thing you can sterilize by dry steam autoclave . If not then uv light is best option for sterilize expose cotton balls at high intensity of uv at-least for 2-3 hours.
We use a plastic-paper called "View pack" from SIGMA which comes in a roll and can be cut and sealed to fit any of your materials i.e. from a small size like cotton ball to a clean room lab coat. A pack can be used for both steam and E.O. Gas which changing of color strips after the sterile process (E.O Gas to yellow and steam to brown).
It works OK with your autoclave which you mentioned doesn't have a dry cycle. After steam autoclave, leave the packages in the clean area or in a warm incubator until the vapor inside the package dries off.
usually, in my case i'll put my cotton balls in an autoclave plastic bag...or u can just put it on a jar bottle then use an alufo as the lid then sterelize it like usual..its the easiest way
hope it'd help..
Depending to the amount of cotton balls I would put them into a glass beaker and close the glass beaker with aluminium foil.
If there are Issues with water at the bottom you may construct a kind of spacer between the bottom of the glass and the cotton balls.
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