Design and Development of Steam Sterilizer
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Date
2023-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
According to the 2010 WHO infectious disease report, hundreds of millions of patients around the world are affected by healthcare-associated infections which cause extended clinic stays, long-term disability, massive additional costs, and unnecessary deaths. This folds higher in low-income countries but it is a global burden. To minimize the burden of these infections, cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization techniques have been applied. For a sterilization technique, different steam sterilizers are available in the market ranging from the simplest electro-mechanical portable systems to the complex microcontroller-based double-door floor fixed types. However, those steam sterilizers can’t adjust environmental pressure for altitudinal changes that often fail to function properly under significant pressure variation. Countries like Ethiopia have great geographical diversity, known altitude ranges from the highest peak at Ras Dashen (4,620m) down to the Dallol Depression (-148m), which highly affect the performance of steam sterilizers. The main intent of this thesis study is to design a microcontroller-based smart steam sterilizer that adjusts itself to variable altitudes since steam sterilizers that work in all altitudes are vital for the healthcare system. The sterilizer also comes with a water electrical conductivity sensor to completely avoid the use of hard water integrated with a water level regulator to protect the heater when water runs out inside the chamber. Interfacing between the proposed smart pressure compensator, conductivity sensor with water level regulator of steam sterilizers is worked out in this study. The developed control system senses the environmental condition using BMP280 sensor to adjust itself based on the altitudinal changes as well as water electrical conductivity, water level, pressure, and temperature sensors. A formula is developed based on the altitude pressure compensation to solve the problem of altitudinal effect and for water quality and quantity measurement guided by a programmable microcontroller. The control system can adjust the pressure based on the altitudinal variations. The system offers better efficiency, precision and comes with great ease of use. The designed smart steam sterilizer is as effective as existing modern sterilizers with an added feature of blocking use of hard water. Meanwhile, further research might be needed to make the device more efficient, lower cost, durable, and safer.
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Keywords
Steam sterilizer, Microcontroller, Water hardness, Water level regulator, Altitudinal variation, Temperature, Pressure sensor.