Ethylene Oxide (EO) is a great sterilizer because it kills everything and it's small enough of a molecule to penetrate most packaging (cardboard, shrink wrap plastic, etc.). Problem is... it kills everything and is not only a carcinogen but also highly flammable. Handle with care.
Despite the dangers if misused, it's a precursor to a wide range of common chemicals, including surfactants, detergents and other industrial products.
It's also been used for sterilizing medical equipment for years. With respect to sterilization it's a better alternative than heat, which would damage certain plastics and / or electronics, or UV (or microwave) which has its own issues and challchallenges.
For any medical product from bandages to stents to pacemakers to nasal swabs and a whole assortment of medical products and devices EO has been the sterilization of choice.
Stick a pallet in a chamber, hold in an EO environment for enough time to kill the bacteria that may be present, then evacuate the chamber and back purge with nitrogen. Flush the chamber out a few times by purging / evacuating to ensure there is little if any EO left in the product that finds its way to the consumer.
I bring this up because I've seen some misinformation about the use of EO in the cotton swabs used for nasal testing for Covid and similar respiratory diseases. These products to not expose you to EO.
For those of you wondering... what do they do with the EO they purge out of the srerilization chamber? It's sent through an Air Scrubber which converts the EO to less toxic (and more useable) Ethylene Glycol, one of the primary ingredients in Antifreeze. Due to regulatory changes over the past few years, EO regulations gave been tightened and most facilities either have installed or are in the process of installing additional abatement measures.How do I know all this? Experience.Now I'm no apologist for the chemical industry, nor am I a shell for big pharma, but I figure my expertise having been in and around EO for years it was worth setting the record straight. Let's deal in facts not fear.
I have to test weekly for work and that shit is nasty. I do the drive thru do it yourself test.
that's all I'm saying.