Many countries around the globe have seen their water charges rise recently, with prices varying greatly by location. In some countries prices are set to rise by as much as 18% over two years.

Many countries around the globe have seen their water charges rise recently, with prices varying greatly by location. In some countries prices are set to rise by as much as 18% over two years. Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) policy paper entitled “Plan for Water” states that England and Wales currently use 14 billion litres of water per day and will need an additional 4 billion litres per day by 2050. The success of ensuring every nation’s future public water supply will depend upon a twin-track approach: delivering new supplies of water; and reducing water demand.

To reduce demand, we all need to use water sensibly as well as using more water efficient resources. Priorclave stand ready and able to assist you and your organisation in this endeavour.

When the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the United States of America compared their steam-jacketed autoclaves and Priorclave’s non-jacketed laboratory autoclaves side-by-side, they found that jacketed autoclaves used in excess of thirty times more water – with no corresponding benefit. In field tests, Priorclave's laboratory autoclaves operating costs have been documented at more than 80% lower than same-capacity jacketed autoclaves.

Although it is impossible to say exactly how much water a Priorclave autoclave will use during operation without knowing a great deal about your own unique requirements and desired use, we can offer a very rough guideline. On average, Priorclave's Benchtop models with condensate bottle exhaust will typically consume as little as half a litre of water per cycle. Whilst models with drain condenser exhaust cooling can consume between 15-25 gallons per cycle.

In the interest of greater accuracy, Priorclave monitored water consumption on an autoclave with a popular laboratory configuration (A 150 Litre Priorclave front-loader with a vacuum system and drain condenser). Priorclave found that running a standard sterilisation cycle: On average, for a normal cycle, around 3.3L is lost as vented steam from the autoclave chamber. This is replenished by the water fill system at the end of the cycle. The chamber holds approximately 12L.

Vacuum Pump usage varies widely by cycle type, but on a cycle with the standard two pre-heating vacuum pulldowns and twelve post-cycle vacuum pulldowns, around 35L of water is used per cycle. If only a pre-heating vacuum is used, then the water consumption drops considerably to around 10L per cycle.

Drain Condenser use also varies by cycle as the condenser is thermostatically operated, and this only runs as and when needed. On the cycle with a standard two preheating vacuum pulldowns and twelve post cycle vacuum pulldowns, the drain condenser consumed around 10L per cycle. have a significant impact on performance, given two like-sized autoclave chambers, you’ll find that the rectangular chamber requires a heater rated at roughly three times that of a comparable cylindrical chamber. In practice, it takes about as much energy just to heat a rectangular chamber up to begin sterilization as it does to run an entire sterilization cycle through a cylindrical model. On an annual basis, a cylindrical-vessel front-loading

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