REVIEW

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Keywords
steam sterilisation process
non-condensable gases (NCGs)
process challenge device (PCD)

Effects of Non-Condensable Gases (NCGs)

on Steam Sterilisation Processes
U. Kaiser

Introduction
The dangers posed by non-condensable
gases (NCGs) in steam sterilisation
processes have long been underestimated. Biological indicators, or the best chemical indicators on the market, do not signal the presence of a NCG content of up
to 10% in a sterilisation process so long
as there is mixing of steam and NCGs in
the sterilisation chamber.
Already back in 1963, Bowie and Dick
(1) demonstrated that steam/NCG mixtures could prove dangerous if steam resulting from condensation is being consumed on the sterile supplies and the
NCGs enclosed in this steam are able to
accumulate present in the form of closed
packages.
If the NCGs are unable to mix again
with steam within closed packages containing instruments, in porous laundry
packages or within lumened devices,
these quantities of gas will accumulate
and prevent steam penetration into these
areas, thus also preventing the build-up of
heat and entry of water which are prerequisites for successful sterilisation.
Relatively large volumes of steam are
consumed in sterilisation processes for
heating (sterilisation) supplies (approx. 300
400 l per 10 kg materials under normal
conditions). Conversely, the steam decreases its volume by a factor of 1,000 on
condensing to water. This means that one
litter of steam produces around one 1 ml
water. The exact ratio will be determined
by the pressure/temperature conditions.
If a package contains 10 kg of supplies that are to be heated by means of
condensation and the steam were to contain only 1% NCGs, this would result in
around 4 litres NCGs accumulating in this
package, and large sections of the pack-

age would not be sterilised.

Therefore European Standard EN 285
regulating steam sterilisation processes
for the health sector has set a very small
limit for the quantity of NCGs in steam
with which sterilisers should still be operated. The presence of 35 ml NCGs in 1
litre steam-condensate is given in the standard as 3.5%. But these specifications
apply for a
NCG-condensate mixture. In reality
the mixture is present in the gas phase
with a somewhat 1,000-fold greater steam
volume compared with the condensate
volume, hence the actual percentage in the
gas phase must be around 1,000-fold less,
and may reach a maximum level of around
0.003%. As borne out in practice, this is
a realistic value, which if exceeded will
lead to quantifiable problems.

Task Definition
There are various reasons why NCGs occur:
1. Inadequate air removal from the sterilisation chamber before steam entry.
2. Leaks. In modern sterilisers a vacuum
is generated to remove air. Leaks in door
seals, valves or screw fittings, which can
also occur briefly because of dirt or lost labels, allow air to enter. Therefore modern
sterilisers are equipped with a leak-test
programme that, however, is run at most
once daily before commencing operations.
3. Leaky door seals. Modern sterilisers
are fitted with slide doors closed by means
of pneumatically actuated door seals. A
pressure level that is essentially higher
than the operating pressure prevailing
within the sterilisation chamber must be
built up behind the seals. Compressed air

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can escape into the steriliser chamber if

the seals have leaks. Often, it is not possible to detect this problem by running a
leak test first because this is carried out
with an internal pressure value that is 23 bar lower and hence the test differential pressure is much greater than that
prevailing during the actual sterilisation
process.
To curtail this risk many steriliser manufacturers therefore use steam instead
of air. The use of steam means that the
service life of the door seals is shortened
and that, accordingly, the maintenance intervals are also shorter.
4. Steam Pipes and steam generators become filled with air or NCGs if they are not
used over a period of time. Before using
the sterilisation system again, steam generators and pipes must first be rinsed out
with steam. In the hospital setting this
rinsing task is performed mainly by running
an empty load to heat the steriliser. The
ensuing Bowie-Dick test is then run to
check that air has been successfully removed from the pipes. If the BD test is
negative on the first attempt, the next attempt will generally be successful Therefore a BD test programme of e.g. 134 C,
3.5 min is generally stipulated for large
sterilisers.
Small sterilisers with an integrated
steam generator face less risk because
they are not hampered by long pipelines.
Hence the recently published standard

* Dr. Ulrich Kaiser, Member of the working group ISO

TC 198 WG 4+6 (Modification of the Euro ISO
standards for chemical and biological indicators),
gke-mbH, Auf der Lind 10, 65529 Waldems-Esch,
Germany, E-Mail: [email protected]

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regulating small sterilisers,

EN 13060, does not stipulate a BD
test for small sterilisers.
5. The most critical source of problems is
NCGs that are carried into the sterilisation process with the steam. These NCGs
are formed during steam generation because of:
Air dissolved in the water that is expelled when the water is heated. In
the case of raw water containing iron
and manganese, air is often introduced
into external water-processing systems
to precipitate these metals as oxides.
What remains then is water with a high
content of dissolved air.
Hydrogen carbonate salts dissolved in
the feedwater which when heated disintegrate to carbonate salts (limescale)
and give off carbon dioxide (CO2) as a
NCG.
Therefore feedwater processing is of paramount importance in steam generation.
The water should be demineralised and degassed before being fed into the steam
generator.
While more than 90% of dissolved
salts are removed from the raw water by
means of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination systems, gases such as CO2 and air
pass quantitatively through the RO membranes. The latter are thus not sufficient
for feedwater processing, so for this reason mixed-bed ion exchangers still have
to be used to remove at least the CO2 but
not the dissolved air.
The best way to remove NCGs is to
preconnenct a degassing facility that heats
the water to 90 100C before it is fed into the steam generator. No thermal energy is lost here because the water continues being heated later.
Therefore the presence of any NCGs
in the steam plays a critical role in sterilisation process since with each episode of
discontinued feeding of water into the
steam generator, a NCG peak is formed in
the steam a short time later. Hence the
NCG concentration in the steam is not
constant over time, rather NCG peaks occur after feeding water into the steam
generator. In a hospital setting where a
central steam supply facility with a high
steam consumption rate, e.g. for the
kitchen or laundry, is used such peaks occur only at certain times.
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The method outlined in standard EN

285 can be used to measure (2) NCGs.
For a long time now discussions have
focused on what NCG concentrations pose
a danger to the steam sterilisation process.
Here there is no absolute answer as this
will depend greatly on the loading pattern.
Minimal loads in a large steriliser are more
critical because any residual quantities of
NCGs in the steriliser will be fully taken up
by the minimal load, whereas the same
residual quantity of NCGs is better distributed in a full load, and is thus less critical for the individual load (small load effect = SLE). The SLE is manifested only
in the case of those causes listed above
in Points 1 4. This does not apply if NCGs
are present in the steam (Point 5).
The dangers posed by the NCG concentrations in the steam vary greatly for
the different sterile supplies:
1 NCGs are not at all critical for open
trays with solid, unwrapped instruments because convection provides
for mixing of the NCG with the steam.
Hence such a load can also be reliably
sterilised in sterilisers using gravitational or flow methods.
2 High NCG concentrations are always
critical for trays containing wrapped
solid instruments irrespective of the
porosity of the packaging. This is because no convection takes place and
the amount of NCGs accumulating
within the packaging as a result of
steam condensation will not be distributed. The NCGs can escape only
by means of slow diffusion through the
packaging. This is explains why longer
sterilisation times are selected for
processes with poor air removal: to remove the air rather than to kill the microbes. But a longer sterilisation time
is not effective for voluminous porous
items and lumened (hollow) devices
under such conditions.
3 As the volume of a package increases,
porous articles such as laundry packages, surgical towels or swabs impede
convection. For a long time it was believed that it was large porous packages that were the main cause of problems in sterilisation processes. Therefore even today European standard EN
285 uses a 7-kg laundry package as a
BD test package to simulate a worst-

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case scenario for air removal and steam

penetration test. From standard tests
described in the test standard EN 8674 one notes that this laundry package
signals errors in the steam sterilisation
process when the quantity of NCGs
reaches approx. 150 250 ml.
4 Narrow-lumened (hollow) devices such
as minimally invasive surgical (MIS) instruments, catheters and tubes have
very small lumens depending on their
design, and these lumens are also heated by steam. If NCGs are present they
will also be carried into such lumens
and have no means of mixing once
again with the steam through convection. A tube with a 2 mm internal diameter and 1 m length has an interval
volume of only 3.14 ml. If 10 cm of this
internal volume is occupied by NCGs,
the remaining volume will only be 0.31
ml. This demonstrates how even NCG
quantities of well below 1 ml can be absolutely critical for lumened devices.
A study conducted by Prof. von Eiff of
University of Mnster in hospitals in North
Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony revealed that, in particular, 40% of hollow instruments released for use were not sterile (4). One reason for such problems is
that the classic biological and/or well-integrated chemical indicators can attest to
the sterility of supplies only at those locations at which they are positioned. But
in general these indicators cannot be
placed at those sites within the instrument which are most difficult to access,
hence the established practice of using
such indicators is not suitable for providing insights into the sterility of lumened devices.

Implications for Validation and

Routine Monitoring
Various publications (2) have revealed the
standard BD test is not able to detect NCG
quantities below 50 ml. These NCG quantities are too high by a factor of 100 as far
as lumened devices are concerned. European standard EN 867-5 describes a hollow device system Hollow A that is capable of detecting NCG quantities of well
below 1 ml. This is a tube model with a 1.5
m PTFE tube with an internal diameter of
2 mm and a PTFE terminal capsule with

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an internal volume of approx. 0.3 ml which

is able to accommodate a biological or
chemical indicator for detection of NCGs.
This capsule is able to detect NCG volumes of less than 0.1 ml.
If one compares the results of the
standard BD test package with those of
the helix PCD (2) one notes that air removal programmes of less depth but with
a greater number of repeated air-removal
cycles show a positive result for air removal in the BD test but a negative result
for the helix PCD (2). This proves that the
standard BD test is unable to demonstrate
that air is reliably removed from hollow
devices with a small internal diameter.
Likewise, the use of thermoelectric
measurements, in particular, in metal instruments with a small internal diameter
gives incorrect results because the minute,
residual quantities of air within it are quickly heated by the metal walls, which are
good conductors of heat, thus ensuring
that the internal temperature will soon
reach that of the outside temperature regardless of whether NCGs or steam are
present in the hollow device. Since thermocouples are not able to distinguish between NCGs and steam, thermoelectric
measurements are not suitable in principle for narrow lumened metal hollow devices.
Measurement of the pressure-temperature profile is now a standard practice
both for validation and routine monitor-

ing. Based on Daltons Law, the partial

pressures of all gases are added together in an enclosed space to give a total
pressure value. If saturated steam is present, a partial pressure value must be assigned to each temperature (steam-pressure table). If NCGs are present in the
steam the pressure must therefore be
higher than in pure steam. But NCG concentrations well below 1 % can be dangerous. The associated partial pressure
is thus max 1-2 mbar. The test pressuredisplay instruments are, unfortunately, not
able to record these minimal changes in
pressure. Hence recording the pressuretemperature curves gives no insights into critical NCG concentrations. This has also been borne out by the measurements
carried out by B. Kirk (4).
To measure the critical NCG quantities for hollow devices there is at present
no technical means other than to use a
suitable process challenge device (PCD)
able to measure the minute NCG quantities. Their sensitivity must be adapted to
the loading pattern. The Hollow A PCD
described in EN 867-5 is representative of
a large portion of the instruments currently used in the health sector, but not of
all supplies undergoing sterilisation. When
validating steam sterilisation processes it
must be ensured that the PCDs employed
present a greater challenge to steam penetration than do the intricate devices contained in a load.

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Since the NCG concentrations change

for each load, if hollow devices are being
sterilised, hollow PCDs should also be
used instead of the porous BD test to furnish proof of the effectiveness of the
process, not only on commencing operations but also for all loads.
In the revised draft to European Standard EN 285 for large sterilisers for the
health sector, which had been in force for
10 years, The European Standardisation
Commission has included, in addition to
the BD test system, the Hollow A test
from European standard EN 867-5 for the
type test in order to ensure that the respective steriliser type can sterilise the
intricate devices currently used in the
health sector.
i

Literatur
1.
2.
3.

4.

5.

Bowie, Kelsey, Thompson (1963): The Bowie and

Dick Autoclave Tape Test. The Lancet 16, 586.
EN 285:1994 Sterilisation Dampf-Sterilisatoren
Gro-Sterilisatoren
Gmann J, Kaiser U, Menzel R: Entlftungsverhalten
von unterschiedlichen Dampf-Sterilisationsprozessen
gegenber porsen und hohlen Sterilisiergtern. ZentrSteril 2001; 9 (3): 177186.
Pressenotiz Prof. Dr. Dr. Wilfried von Eiff, Universitt
Mnster, Deutschland: 128.000 Wundinfektionen pro
Jahr nach Operationen (ZentrSteril 2004; 12 (6):
373374.)
Kirk B.: Can the Bowie-Dick-Test be Replaced by
Temperature and Pressure Loggers? Forum SGSV
Schweizerische Gesellschaft fr Sterilgutversorgung,
Kongressausgabe 03. Juli 2003, 1415.

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