IC ion exchange cartridge – 25 liters

The topic of hygiene is receiving more and more attention in practices and healthcare companies, triggered by quality management and new legal requirements. The view of the connections has become holistic. This helps to understand processes and intervene to control them.

One aspect of hygiene, water quality, has now come into focus. First of all as water that is safe from an infectious point of view, as is required, for example, for treatment units in a dental practice. The aim here is to prevent biofilm and with it the risk of nosocomial infections. However, according to the Robert Koch Institute, this does not currently lead to a recommendation for regular microbial testing.

Water quality can also refer to valid water: This allows sterile goods to be cleaned reliably and the value of instruments and cleaning devices to be better preserved in the long term.

Local tap water must meet the criteria of the German Drinking Water Ordinance (TVO): It must not contain any pathogens in potentially harmful concentrations and as few microorganisms as is technically acceptable. Limit values apply to the microbiological parameters. When we talk about hygienic water, we are usually talking about drinking water quality.

Our drinking water contains ingredients in varying degrees that can cause problems in the healthcare system:

• Calcium and magnesium salts as hardness factors
• Heavy and non-ferrous metals such as iron, manganese or copper,
• Silicic acid and silicates, their salts,
• Chlorides as well as
• Evaporation residue, i.e. mineral deposits that remain when water evaporates.

These ingredients can cause critical stains, deposits and corrosion on the sterile items. This is even possible with instruments made of stainless steel. All of this can affect hygiene.

Germ-free water is free of pathogens

Sterile water is not only free of germs, but also of microorganisms at every stage of development. It is absolutely necessary when treating wounds, artificially created body openings (stoma) or in the phase after surgery.

The demineralization process removes mineral ingredients from tap water. This is why science and technology usually speak of demineralized water. Exchange resins are used for complete desalination. Their quality in turn determines whether non-polar or organic substances or impurities remain in the fully desalinated water.

The quality of the demineralised water is determined using the parameters residual salt content (<10 mg/l) and conductivity (<15 µs/cm, both values in accordance with the recommendations of the DGSV, see below). It cannot therefore be equated with distilled water, which has a significantly lower conductivity of 0.5 to 5 µs/cm and is more complex to produce. A comparable conductivity in full desalination could only be achieved using reverse osmosis, as is known from the production of ultrapure water.

Basically:

Fully desalinated water preserves the value of the instruments as well as the cleaning devices used such as thermal disinfectors (RDG) or autoclaves. In medical technology, this reference is also referred to as valid water.

As the operator of a practice or healthcare business, you can obtain information from the German Society for Sterile Goods Supply (Link DGSV).

The two recommendations on water from the Quality Committee should be highlighted; We have made both available for you here under the “Downloads” section.

The interdisciplinary instrument processing working group deals with the topic in detail, particularly in its red brochure (Link AKI). Here the aspects of instrument materials, water and process chemicals are examined. The individual steps for cleaning and disinfection are also explained in detail.

The authors of both sources clearly highlight the advantages of demineralised water for safe hygiene. This particularly applies to the final rinsing step.

IC Medical develops high-quality cleaning and disinfection devices (RDG) such as thermal disinfectors, autoclaves and sealing devices. Fully demineralized water significantly improves the performance of the devices and maintains their value. It therefore clearly represents a feature of resource-saving, i.e. device-friendly, water treatment.

The IC ion exchange cartridge offered by IC Medical contains a special and regenerable mixed bed resin. This is characterized by the fact that no volatile organic substances can pass into the water. At no time are neutral fats used, which in turn could impair the water quality as non-polar molecules, which the DGSV warns against. During ion exchange, the drinking water flows downwards from above over the mixed bed resin filling. This almost completely removes the salts as well as carbon dioxide and silica contained in drinking water.

• Low investment costs
• Easy to use
• Residual salt content <0.1 mg/l
• Conductivity <0.2 µs/cm

What values are specifically associated with the IC ion exchange cartridge? They are convincing: Thanks to it, a residual salt content of <0.1 mg/l and a conductivity of <0.2 µs/cm can be achieved. This significantly exceeds the recommendations of the DGSV.

We can install the IC ion exchange cartridge upstream of all common cleaning and disinfection devices. The only criterion is that both the device and the practice infrastructure have the necessary connections. Just give us a call if you have any questions, we will be happy to help you clarify:

07181 7060-70

sales@icmedical.de

If the resin becomes more and more saturated with the exchanged ingredients, it is called an exhausted ion exchanger. It is necessary that the software of the RDG used can signal the critical status in a timely manner based on limit values.

The capacity of our IC ion exchange cartridge in particular is approx. 3,700 liters. If you have your sterile items cleaned with a water-saving RDG, you have an additional advantage. For comparison: Our HYG 5 thermodisinfector, for example, requires approx. 10 liters of water per wash cycle.

Thermal disinfectors HYG 5

IC Medical offers a rapid express service for regeneration, in which our employee replaces the exhausted ion exchange resins with regenerated ones and checks the renewed performance based on conductivity, pH value, etc.

Our customers are therefore completely relieved of the burden of packaging, shipping and functional testing.

The complete solution with service/warranty package, hygiene package and thermal disinfector. Our thermal disinfector HYG 5 is only available through direct sales.

• 1 program technology
• Preparation on two levels
• Made by us in Baden-Württemberg
• Device guarantee up to 5 years
• In-house service technicians nationwide