Cleaning compositions for solid surfaces – auxiliary compositions – Cleaning compositions or processes of preparing – For cleaning a specific substrate or removing a specific...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-07
2001-12-18
Criares, Theodore J. (Department: 1617)
Cleaning compositions for solid surfaces, auxiliary compositions
Cleaning compositions or processes of preparing
For cleaning a specific substrate or removing a specific...
C510S272000, C510S405000, C510S418000, C134S003000, C134S041000, C134S042000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06331514
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a composition useful for sterilizing and disinfecting
E. coli
and salmonella infected foods, materials and surfaces and particularly to a compound having a higher concentration of hydronium ion.
PRIOR ART AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE
In the past few years there has been a marked increase in the number of
E. coli
or other food born pathogen outbreaks. While some of these can be traced back to contaminated foods (food spoilage), other cannot. It must therefore be assumed that most of these outbreaks are caused by secondary contamination sources such as from the facilities used to prepare the food or from the preparers. In view of these outbreaks, concern has intensified in developing and practicing improved techniques of food preparation.
Many types of disinfecting and sterilizing agents have been investigated with limited success.
The term “sterilization” generally infers that the sterilizing agent has eliminated all viable microorganisms found on food or in food preparation areas. This also includes spores of the microorganisms. In contrast, the term “disinfection” generally refers to the process of killing microorganism or sometimes merely reducing the potential infectivity of the material and does not necessarily imply removal or destruction of all the living microorganisms and their spores. At this time, the most commonly used household or commercial methods of disinfection or sterilization employ heat or chemical agents. The most common instance of application of heat is in boiling water. Under ideal conditions at sea level, the best kill expressed logarithmically is log 4 (99.99%) The boiling temperature must be maintained for 20 minutes or more.
It is generally believed that the use of boiling water results in sterilized water. In fact, the water may only be disinfected and not sterilized. In fact, boiling will not kill or even inactivate all of the spores of such microorganisms and they remain viable at 212° F. (boiling point at sea level). Above 5000 feet, boiling occurs below 200° F. and does not kill the most dangerous pathogens and microorganisms. With a change in environment, these inactivated pathogens can be revived or spores can again be activated into active organisms which, even if present in small numbers, can reproduce to large numbers in a short period of time.
The most commonly used disinfection or sterilizing agent is dissolved chlorine gas, which is generated by these agents.
There are many many methods which rely on other chemical agents but these methods are characterized by a number of disadvantages.
One such method requires the use of sodium hypochlolite and other chlorine gas generating chemicals. These solutions result in release of free chlorine gas into water which, in most situations, can cause a problem.
Chlorine gas is objectionable since in aqueous solution, it forms hypochlorous acid and has a very sharp odor in concentrations as low as 3.5 parts per million. It forms toxic and possibly carcinogenic organic halogen compounds while causing irritation of the pulmonary mucosa.
A number of halogen containing compounds, such as, for example, chlorine dioxide, bromine oxide, bromine chloride, monochloroamine, bromic acid, hypochlorous acid, chlorates, hypochlorites, iodine monochloride, iodine trichloride and iodine monobromide, among others are known to be effective disinfectants and sterilizing agents if applied in proper concentrations. In particular, chlorine dioxide has been used for many years to treat municipal water supplies and has recently been demonstrate to be effective as a medical and dental equipment sterilizer, as a disinfectant and deodorizer for beds, as fungicide, as toothpaste additive used to prevent dental cavities and as a mouthwash additive.
Chlorine dioxide has been demonstrated to result in the destruction of many microorganisms and their spores at strengths as low as 0.75 ppm; as little as 1 ppm of chlorine dioxide in solution will kill or inactivate 99.99% of Escherichia coli bacteria upon contact for five minutes. Chlorine dioxide has also been effective in inactivating, among others, bacteria such as Bacillus anth acoides,
B subtilis, B. cereus, B. stearothermilus, B. mesentericus, B. megatherium, Clostridium pergigens, Erberthella typhose, Pseudomonosa aeruginosa
and viruses such as HTL-III, polio-virus, Sendaivirus, Vaccina virus, Bacteliophae f2, Coliphage and phage ØX 174.
However, some of such halogen containing compounds such as chlorine dioxide, bromine oxide, bromine chloride and monochloroamine among others are unstable and there have been a number of problems associated with such instability. In particular, the use of chlorine dioxide is somewhat problematic because, at 25° C., it exists as a yellow gas which is explosive and may detonate under certain conditions. Thus chlorine, being readily soluble in water, is usually stored as an aqueous solution at a low temperature to reduce its instability. Such halogen containing compounds, (e,g. chlorine dioxide, bromine oxide, monochloroamine and bromine chloride and, in particular, chlorine dioxide), even though in solution, remain unstable in the sense that they have relatively high rates of chemical breakdown or dissociation, particularly in light. These high rates of chemical breakthrough or dissociation render them inefficient and sometimes totally in effective.
In order to reduce the dissociation of such compounds in solution and take advantage of their excellent sterilization properties, there have been attempts either to provide stable stable solutions of such compounds or to generate such compounds at their place and time of use. For industrial or commercial applications having the necessary equipment and other resources, the chlorine dioxide is generally produced and used immediately. With household or other non-industrial; applications, it is not cost effective, feasible or safe to do this. There have thus been attempts to provide stable chlorine dioxide solutions such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,112,352 and 3,585,147 and 3,591,515 among others. In most of these situation, the chlorine dioxide is provided by releasing the gas by acidification of solutions in which the chlorine dioxide is made more stable by the addition of a peroxide or boron compounds. While this results in an increase of effective shelf life, of such chlorine dioxide generating solutions, there is still significant spontaneous breakdown of the chlorine dioxide and consequently the sterilizing capacity of the solution is rapidly diminished.
Preparation and of chlorine dioxide gas and purification to remove free chlorine is disclosed in Kirk-Othmer, Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, vol. 5. pages 615-617 and Chlorine Dioxide: Chemistry and Environmental Impact of Oxychlorine Compounds by W. S. Masschelin, Ann Arbor Science publishers, Inc. (1979 pages 9-11 and 112-140, the relevant portions of which are incorporated by reference.
In view of problems such as noted above, satisfactory methods of storing and/or transpiring such halogen containing compounds which allow them to retain their disinfecting properties have not been readily available. The result has been that it has not always been possible to utilize to its full potential the excellent disinfectant and sterilizing capability of chlorine dioxide and such other unstable halogen containing compounds. particularly in household and other non-industrial applications.
It is also known that strong acids and alkalies have great potential as sterilizing and disinfecting agents. These agents, in the strengths necessary to be an effective sterilizing or disinfecting agent are corrosive to flesh so there use is limited. It should be noted that a concentrated solution of hydronium ions will not only kill most microorganisms. It also dissolves the organisms and has the ability to destroy (dissolve) the toxins in the microbes as well as most spores.
The use chlorine dioxide, while being the most widely used disinfectant is essentially the “best of all evils”. A difficult problem has b
Overton James Michael
Wurzburger Stephen R.
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