The Importance of Oxygen Cleaning for the Medical Industry

The terminology may be confusing for those who have never heard of it before, as oxygen cleaning actually involves cleaning everything else that isn’t oxygen.
 
What Is Oxygen Cleaning?
As mentioned, oxygen cleaning involves removing particles and materials that might potentially interact with oxygen and cause a reaction as a result.
 
Removing contaminants that could potentially interact with oxygen is not easy as everything, from the equipment to the room itself, no matter how clean, must undergo specific procedures to ensure no traces of anything are left on any surface.
 
Why Is Oxygen Cleaning Important?
While oxygen itself is not flammable, other materials or particles may be, and the presence of oxygen makes it much easier for these materials and particles to ignite, as well as burn faster. Some examples of such particles include dirt, oil, and grease.
 
It’s not only the outside surfaces that must be cleaned. If the inside of something (e.g., a cylinder) will be exposed to oxygen, then so too must the inside be cleansed of contaminants that may potentially cause a reaction. Even a small amount of particles present can be enough to be ignited, depending on the speed of the oxygen coming out of the valve.
 
Oxygen-compatible cleaners are used here, but some parts of the equipment may require the additional usage of special equipment as well. An example would be the valve opening on a cylinder.
 
Oxygen as a Fire Hazard
Oxygen is an oxidizer and is one of the three things needed for combustion to occur. Fuel is another, usually in the form of a particle or contaminant that can react to oxygen. The last is a strong heat source.
 
Heat sources come in many shapes and forms. The most common one is friction, where anything that slides against something else generates heat. This can be a concern when equipment made of metal that moves quickly comes into play. Other factors also involve things like vibration, static electricity, and liquid compression.
 
But the one that poses the biggest risk of all is auto ignition.
 
To put it shortly, auto ignition occurs when a fuel source is spontaneously ignited due to the heat generated by the sudden compression of gas. If the temperature created by this compression exceeds beyond what is needed to ignite non-metallic seals, you get an explosion.
 
Due to this, the presence of oxygen itself is grounds for a potential fire hazard when working with equipment in materials. As such, extra care must be undertaken while oxygen cleaning to ensure no contaminants remain.
 
Benefits from Oxygen Cleaning
By far, the biggest and most crucial point of oxygen cleaning is to remove the potential of fire, and even more so, the potential for an explosion to occur.
 
Many of the ingredients used in drug solids are combustible, especially when in dust form. This can be extremely dangerous for those involved, and it becomes an absolute disaster in a pharmaceutical setting, as it may end up injuring or even killing the people the industry is meant to save, due to failure of proper maintenance. Not to mention the multitude of medicine and vaccines that would go to waste as a result.
 
The pharmaceutical industry, however, is just one of the many industries that benefit from this. Medical devices need to be of the utmost quality in terms of cleanliness, for instance, to be used properly, as they can be the difference between life and death for a patient. But those manufacturing a device may also be at risk if a room isn’t properly cleared of contaminants for the aforementioned reasons.
 

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Mike Montgomery is the technical director of electropolishing at Astro Pak Corporation. With over 30 years of mechanical, machining, and metal finishing experience, Montgomery brings practical knowledge, capability, and excellence to vessel restoration projects across the country.