BIOS 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Petri Dish, Hydrophile, Heavy Metals
Document Summary
2% of people are allergic to iodine. Blood banks put a needle in your arm, but first they sterilize/disinfect your skin with iodine and detergent. They just physically remove it and it goes down the drain. 50-60% ethanol solution kills bacteria/causes no growth. Mouth washes have about 20% ethanol concentration. They are part hydrophobic and part hydrophilic so they can get into membranes and disrupt the normal structure of the membrane, causing the bacteria to die. Best known detergent is sodium dodecyl sulfate. Large hospitals have ways to sterilize mattresses with ethylene oxide. Ethylene oxide is toxic and explosive normally, so it"s mixed with carbon dioxide and is put into a chamber with stuff like mattresses to sterilize them. This way hospitals can have sterile beds without having to always throw out and constantly get new ones. Ethylene oxide can react with proteins in eyes and cause blindness. Burn ward patients are especially susceptible to bacteria.
