Chlorine added to Alconox for Medical Cleaning

Q. Will adding chlorine increase the cleaning power of Alconox Powdered Precision Cleaner?

A. There is no harm in adding chlorine bleach to solutions of Alconox Powdered Precision Cleaner. Adding bleach will add oxidizing capability to the resulting solution. If the residues being removed are affected by oxidizing, then adding bleach will enhance the cleaning effectiveness. If the residues are not affected by oxidizing, then adding bleach has no effect.

Adding bleach will offer some disinfecting in addition to cleaning. Note that if the full disinfection power of bleach is needed, the correct way to use it is to clean first with Alconox to remove all residues that would shield the pathogens from the bleach, and then do a second disinfection with bleach for the correct length of time in order to be sure that the pathogens have been exposed to the correct solution for the correct length of time.

If you try to do these two steps together at the same time, then it is difficult to determine if the pathogens have been exposed long enough because you never know how long it takes to remove any residues that have pathogens hiding behind them.

For information on Alconox Cleaner, see this Alconox Technical Bulletin.  For additional technical information on cleaning validation, please Download our Medical Device Cleaning Validation References PDF.  And if you have a question for our experts about critical cleaning, please visit Ask Alconox.