Especially in the field of medicine it is of critical importance to keep the surgical instruments completely sterile. By cleaning them with hot steam, the nucleolus of bacteria get destroyed whereas the pyrogenics are not. Hence making use of these instruments would cause fever, since the antibodies of the patient would be activated by the pyrogenics. However, if a plasma is used to clean the surgical instruments, the UV light as well as the ion bombardment and the effects of the radicals destroy not only the nucleolus but also the pyrogenics and therefore prevent the risk of getting fever.
Plasma cleaned implantation lens (left) and not cleaned (right).
Steffen Pauly M.Sc.
Ph. D. Student, Plasma Technology
Andreas Schulz
Dr.-Ing.Research associate, Plasma Technology