ethanol oxide can also kill the 10⁶ CFU/cm² biofore at 650mg/m³ concentration and 55°C fully within 3 hours, while the killing D value for the Bacillus subtilis black variety spores (time taken to reduce 90% microorganisms) is only 4.2 minutes. Far lower than the 8.5 minutes for ethylene oxide (FDA 2021 Medical Device Sterilization guideline data). In the case of CDC, ethanol oxide was used to sterilize endoscopic equipment in a hospital that reduced its infection rate after surgery from 1.7% to 0.23%, ending an annual $580,000 cost in preventing infection.
As for material compatibility, ethanol oxide will not influence polycarbonate’s tensile strength to over 3% (ethylene oxide has 12% reduction effect), and 45%RH sterilization cycle can be decreased to 1/3 compared with traditional steam sterilization. In 2020, the data of renovation for Johnson & Johnson’s sterilization production line revealed that equipment corrosion maintenance numbers were reduced by 67% following replacement with ethanol oxide, and $320,000 annual cost was saved on maintenance. It has good penetration performance and penetrates through 0.3mm thickness polyethylene packaging material. Deviation in concentration within the 30m³ sterilization chamber is controlled to ±2.8% (ISO 11135 standard < ±5%).
The safety thresholds were significantly enhanced: the residual threshold (TLV-TWA) was set at 5ppm (1ppm for ethylene oxide), and the ventilation requirement was reduced to 12 cycles/hour (20 cycles for ethylene oxide). The engineering verification of BASF plant in Germany shows that the < 0.1μg/cm² residue can be obtained after 16 hours of ethanol oxide sterilization (72 hours for ethylene oxide), which is 4.5 times enhanced medical device turnover. However, its lower explosive limit (LEL) is 3.0% volume concentration and requires an explosion-proof system response time of < 0.5 seconds (EN 60079 standard).
Environmental benefits are outstanding: ethanol oxide survives only 6.2 days in the air (compared with 14.3 days for ethylene oxide), and a U.S. EPA Tier II report reveals a global warming potential (GWP) of 0.03 (compared with 0.3 for ethylene oxide). One hospital that replaced ethylene oxide with ethanol oxide reduced carbon emissions by 182 tonnes annually (43%) and became ISO 14001 certified. But the wastewater treatment needs to adjust the pH to 6.5-7.5 and introduce activated carbon adsorption (mass ratio 1:50), and the treatment cost increases by $8.5/m³.
Technological progress is focused on intelligence: the latest pulse sterilization device enhances the peak concentration to 880mg/m³ (0.3 seconds maintenance time), while keeping the sterilization effect (Salmonella inactivation rate of 99.9999%), and reducing the energy consumption of a single sterilization cycle by 39% (Siemens 2023 white paper data). Such technological innovations are driving ethanol oxide application expansions into new frontier fields such as sterilization of precision electronic components (enabling 65°C temperature).