Sterilization of disposable surgical gowns with supercritical CO2 makes their reuse possible 

Disposable surgical gowns are one of the most widely used personal protective equipment and their massive use and discarding generates big amounts of waste. CO2 under supercritical conditions allows their sterilization, and thus their reuse, preserving their physicochemical and performance properties. Moreover, this process proves to be an effective and sustainable alternative to other conventional sterilization techniques such as ethylene oxide (EO) or gamma radiation. 

In this article, a protocol was developed for the sterilization (up to 10 cycles) of whole surgical gowns using supercritical CO2 (39 ºC, 140 bar) and H2O2 (at ppm concentrations) as an additive, and dried Bacillus pumilus spores as the bioindicator. In addition, disposable surgical gowns were characterized and compared with the same type of gowns sterilized with EO and gamma rays, with better results observed with the first technique. 

To learn more about this groundbreaking process, see the article “Supercritical CO2 sterilization for surgical gowns: From disposal towards reuse” published in the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering (I.F: 7.4, May 2025).