Disinfectants and Antiseptics

Disinfectants as Sanitizers

Disinfectants are sanitizers if they destroy over 99.9 percent of the target pathogenic organism on the surface of living tissue. To qualify as a sterilizing disinfectant, there must be total destruction of all targeted microorganisms. Fire is probably the most complete disinfectant, as it can achieve 100 percent sanitation. However, its obvious drawback is that it destroys both living and nonliving things. Sunlight and rain can also be powerful natural disinfectants.

However, very few disinfectants can sterilize. To be ideal, a disinfectant would have to achieve complete sterilization without doing harm to areas to be cleansed or to living tissue. To date, no ideal sterilizing [Page 281]disinfectant has been found. Moreover, all disinfectants are by nature toxic to humans and animals.

Modern disinfectants are potent agents to which a bitter substance, Bitrex, is added to prevent ingestion. As a safety precaution, topical disinfectants should never be mixed with household disinfectants because harmful chemical reactions might occur.

Types of Disinfectants

There are many disinfectants currently available on the market. The choice of disinfectant depends on the place and type of cleaning needed, the cost of the disinfectant, and the extent of microorganism elimination required.

Along with chemical disinfectants, ultraviolet light is a very powerful destroyer of microorganisms. Cobalt 60 radiation and gamma radiation are disinfectant methods that use atomic “sunlight” to destroy microorganisms. Probably the newest disinfectant for foods is irradiation using ionizing radiation. Irradiation uses specific energy levels on food to produce changes at the atomic level. It is a method that is currently very controversial because the long-term effects are completely unknown.

Better than using a disinfectant is using basic hygiene. Because bacteria grow in environments that are warm, moist, and dark, packaging or storage that prevent their very rapid growth is a better strategy than disinfecting. An additional reason is that if a disinfection leaves some bacteria alive, the surviving bacteria are more likely to become resistant to the chemicals used as a disinfectant.

Alcohol, usually ethanol or isopropanol, is a common disinfectant. Ethanol is the kind of alcohol produced by nature in beer and wine, and distilled as liquor (such as whiskey, vodka, or gin), or as plain grain alcohol. Isopropanol is isopropyl alcohol that is used as rubbing alcohol. It can be used on humans or animals for quick disinfection. They are not corrosive and are highly effective microbiocides. They are more effective at lower concentrations than at 100 percent concentrations if mixed with a little water. They are not effective against the spores of bacteria or fungi. And, they are also highly flammable.

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