Cleaning Medical Devices with Improved Solvent Techniques

MedTech Outlook | Sunday, April 26, 2020

There is a wealth of information available today to assist in determining the appropriate cleaning procedure for needs, ranging from government resources, environmental organizations, equipment manufacturers, and chemical suppliers to technical papers and consultants.

FREMONT, CA: "Cleanliness is critical" in the medical field! All medical devices—whether disposable, implanted, or reusable—must be cleaned to remove manufacturing soils during the manufacturing process. Additionally, reusable devices must be carefully cleaned and disinfected between uses to avoid infection or disease.

Medical apparatus OEMs must demonstrate that their products are "clean" as a condition of FDA approval. The manufacturing process must ensure that surfaces are free of contamination, as infection prevention and control are crucial for patient health.

Increased quality and reliability requirements necessitate ongoing improvement in cleaning components used in routine medical activities. The finished product must adhere to all criteria. Manufacturing cleaning procedures must be effective while adhering to environmental, health, and safety regulations.

Biocompatibility cleaning: Biocompatibility is defined broadly as the property of a material or equipment that makes it compatible with the human body. For instance, a catheter is deemed biocompatible if it does not cause blood clotting or another reaction when it comes into touch with the bloodstream.

The majority of production parts are cleaned numerous times before release. In an industry where production speed, volume, and quality are essential, it is increasingly critical to ensure that medical components perform as intended once packed by the end-user. That is why it is more crucial to keep parts clean. Facility managers want to understand better aqueous and solvent cleaning solutions to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each technique.

There are numerous options for picking cleaning procedures and chemistries that will deliver the appropriate degree of performance. Additionally, because soils and construction materials are continually changing, it is more critical to stay current on emerging technologies that can satisfy new and expanding demands.

Solvent cleaning: General solvent degreasing is a procedure that many medical device OEMs currently employ. Today's precision and essential cleaning criteria require that most metal parts be free of contaminants and rinse water residue, raising interest in solvent cleaning solutions. Among the advantages of solvents are performance on a variety of soils, compatibility with a variety of materials, the cycle of rapid cleaning, permeation of constricted spaces, drying without residue, and recoverable/reusable