EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Autoclave -agar clogged pipes;help please

I have an autoclave with the pipes and valves clogged with agar. Anyone got a good trick to clearing them out. I heard the idea of using a small gas flame to heat all the metal components - anyone tried it?
Appreciate any suggestions that would save me an entire disassembly.

thanks
Harvey

This link to the Perkins Elmer web site might help - but it is advertising one of their products which it says dissolves the gel.
The agar gels dissolve in water at close to boiling point (>90C) so that might be another method - boiling it out. Or get hold of some beta-agarase, an enzyme that dissolves agar the pathology labs might have this.
Robert

Welcome to the forum, Harvey.

How bad is it? Localised? Are the valves and pipes (whatever) easy to get at for dismantling? At least enough to open a few joints to let the stuff eventually escape.

Then ... I would strip it all down and (as has already been suggested) boil it out. That is:- get the kettle on! Or failing that, try a blow-torch.

Hello,


Try using tuttnauer chamber brite, it may help you.

Roman

I appreciate these suggestions. My first attempt was to remove the chamber outlet pipe. It was solid with agar. I put it in boiling water - that worked well but the autoclave is still blocked. So I now believe the agar is in at least one valve. I will try a few of the suggested ideas and report.
thanks again for the suggestions
Harvey

Thanks again for the ideas
In the end despite using both boiling water as the infed water and warming all pipes and valves with a small blow torch I had to totally disassemble one valve. it had been corroded badly and the smallest amount of undissolved agar was reducing the flow rate too much. After a full refurbishment of that valve the repair was successful.
Certainly using boiling water and a small blow torch is the best/ most economical technique if anyone else has the same issue in the future. I recommend disconnecting the chamber heating element and fixing the position of the water reservoir float with the chamber inlet pipe open. Run the autoclave and it will pump water continously until it times out because the float hasn't moved. This procedure can repeated many times quite safely.
thanks again
harvey

Pleased that you got a result there, Harvey.

And thanks for getting back to us.