Sterilization and Disinfection

Disinfection and sterilization methods play important roles in infection prevention and contamination control in our daily lives and environments. They can be broadly classified as being physical or chemical in their various applications. The most widely used physical methods include heat, radiation, and filtration. A much wider range of antimicrobial chemicals (also referred to biocides) are used for various microbicidal and/or preservative applications, including types of alcohols, aldehydes, halogens, antimicrobial metals, and phenolics. They range in intrinsic antimicrobial activity, toxicity, applications, and mechanisms of action. Although many of these agents are widely and traditionally used over decades, in most case their true mechanisms of action are not well understood. Despite their toxicity and general broader spectrum of efficacy in comparison to most anti-infectives (such as antibiotics), microorganisms are found to deploy remarkable resistance mechanisms to circumvent their activity and sometimes with dramatic consequences. Not unlike anti-infective resistance studies, these are found to include intrinsic mechanisms that are naturally found within certain groups of microorganisms and acquired mechanisms through the acquisition of mutations and genetic elements.