At Rice University engineers have converted a standard 20-foot shipping container into a fully functional surgical instrument sterilization facility. It can be delivered to remote and low-resource locations like any other container, and being powered by solar panels can work in most locations. The team performed over sixty trials of their sterilization platform, demonstrating in a study published in PLOS ONE a nearly perfect preparation of instruments for use in surgeries.
The so called Sterile Box includes an electric water filtration system and a steam autoclave, both running off batteries that are replenished by roof-mounted solar panels. A hand pump on the ground level 50 gallon water tank is used to move water to an equivalent tank on the roof from where water is used for cleaning and sterilization.
The interior is split into two sections, including where instruments are brought in and a separate clean room. A small window is used to pass instruments in and out.
Cleaning is done in a three-basin sink using traditional methods, then the instruments are passed to a steam autoclave powered by a hotplate, then dried, and finally stored for upcoming procedures.
Check out the Sterile Box in this newly released Rice University video:
Study in PLOS ONE: A Shipping Container-Based Sterile Processing Unit for Low Resources Settings…
Via: Rice University…