EO gas disinfection machines are commonly used in different fields, but mostly still for health. The disinfection with EO gas of items and air in operating room and equipment ensuring gas sterilization is a cost-effective and easy-to-implement method.
How does EO sterilization work?, Why should ethylene oxide be used for sterilization? How does it work? Is the E.O gas disinfection system safe?
What is EO?
EO or Ethylene oxide is an organic compound with a chemical formula of C2H4O. The CAS code of E.O gas is: 75-21-8.
Other names for EO gas are: Alkene Oxide, Oxane, Oxirane, Dimethylene Oxide, E.O, ETO, Dihydroxirene, Oxacyclopropane.
Properties of Ethylene Oxide
- The vaporization temperature of ethylene oxide is at 10.4ºC.
- At a temperature of 25ºC, EO gas is a colorless gas with a characteristic sweet ether smell. You can feel its appearance in the air when the concentration reaches over 500 ppm.
- Ethylene oxide is easily soluble in water, ethanol, dietyl ether and many organic solvents.
- It is also a flammable gas with a solution of just 4% in water that can also cause fire.
- Therefore, when storing and transporting EO gas, people are common to compress this gas together with some inert gases such as CO2, N2 to form a liquefied mixture at high pressure to reduce its likelihood of explosion..
Toxicity of E.O gas
Industrial ethylene oxide is commonly used in industries producing synthetic glycol ether or ethylene glycol.
Toxicity of E.O gas:
- Ethylene oxide is toxic, it can cause bad reactions to human body such as skin irritation, causing headaches and vomiting.
- It may cause short of breath and long-term exposure can cause pathology and risk of heart disease, paralysis or coma.
E.O gas used in Ethylene Oxide sterilizers

Disinfection with EO sterilized gas is most suitable for use in medical instruments. Because, when disinfected with steam in the traditional way, some types of tools can be deformed or modified properties at high temperatures.
Therefore, the disinfection of EO gas is more effective because it can increase the rate of reuse of medical instruments.
EO sterilizers usually consists of a large decontamination chamber, so a large amount of medical instruments, which you can’t disinfect with heat, can be disinfected in every one time.
This disinfection system allows sterilization of tools and materials that do not tolerate high temperatures or humidity levels, with any sizes or diameter of the tube barrel and also any length of the tool or the pipe cage, so it is suitable for most packaging materials.
Currently, ethylene oxide sterilizers are common and sold with different capacity such as
- ZEOSS-160L (178 litres),
- ZEOSS-225 (265 liters),
- ZEOSS-450 (505 liters),
- ZEOSS-80 sterilization machine (90 liters),
- ZEOSS-80L (92 litres),
- ZEOSS-900 (1032 litres),….
Depending on the needs of use, you can choose a disinfectant to be reasonable.
The installation and use of EO gas sterilization system are controlled by these factors below:
EO sterilization is carried out by exposing objects to ethylene oxide in a chamber or closed space.
Factors that may affect the sterilization efficiency of EO gases include: air concentration, air humidity, temperature levels and time for exposure.
- Using EO sterilization machine equipment allows to maintain a stable sterilization temperature at 30oC to 55oC.
- Good control of humidity in EO sterilization is very important, so we should keep the best humidity for sterilization chamber at 30% – 80%. Because, if it is too dry, the spores of bacteria can increase resistance to EO
- Therefore, we have to keep humidity at a normal appropriate level in EO sterilization chambers.
- EO sterilization ensures efficiency when the gas concentration reaches from 200ppm to 800 ppm.
- Sterile exposure time is guaranteed to be thorough from 2 to 8 hours. The time of ethylene oxide gas neutralizing is about 4-8 hours depending on the size of the air chasing chamber.
Thus, the above information is all about medical sterilization gas EO. Hopefully you can better understand this Ethylene oxide gas through this article. If you are in need of buying EO gas, please contact us immediately to get the best quality purchase at the best price
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