An autoclave is a medical or laboratory equipment where intruments are placed to be sterilized or disinfected.  Remember that there are various ways to disinfect instruments and sterilization is crucial for reasons we have learned before in school.  Everything gets contaminated with bacteria immediately and even exposure to air contaminates materials.  At home there are different ways to disinfect objects and you already heard of the usage of hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, and boiling water.  Water solutions earlier revealed are quite crude and do not warrant the elimination of every kind of microorganism.  Remember further that infectious viruses and bacteria have certain ways to endure simple methods of disinfection.  In laboratories, steaming of water, for instance, does not ensure a hundred percent decontamination.  Emergency rooms and medical facilities get regular exposure to infectious agents from persons with tuberculosis, pneumonia, and other illness; therefore, apparatuses used to patients acquire a profuse supply of infectious viruses and bacteria.  These cannot be removed by conventional means and, in many cases, to eliminate these microorganisms thoroughly, more effective methods must be employed.  Autoclaving is among these procedures.  It uses steam or high-temperature water that is much hotter than steaming water.  How is this reached when water temperature never rises over 100˚C?  The secret, as you have been taught in physics, is to increase air pressure.  The law says that the higher the air pressure, the higher the boiling point of water goes.  In autoclave devices, liquid can reach high temperatures of more than 120˚C before boiling.  This superheated liquid is rather useful in destroying various disease causing bacteria, which are not destroyed through boiling and other regular methods.

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