Steam Purity is a measure of all contaminants in steam, with high-purity steam containing only trace amounts of contamination. Maintaining high steam purity is important in many industries, but there are few applications where it is more critical than in healthcare facilities that use plant steam for surgical instrument sterilization and/or operating room humidification. In a hospital, any contaminants in the steam could potentially interfere with proper sterilization as well as be inhaled by hospital patients, staff, and visitors. Understanding how and where to add the water treatment chemicals and the factors that can cause boiler water carryover will help hospitals ensure that high-purity plant steam is consistently produced.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities are becoming more aware of the dangers of waterborne pathogens that can exist in their manmade plumbing systems. With growing concern of preventing infections, point-of-use (POU) filtration has been more frequently used in the healthcare market to aid in reducing bacteria counts found in water. However, not all filters are created equally, and it is important to understand the basics of microbiological filtration.

Hospitals use steam boilers to meet a variety of needs including domestic hot water, space heating, food preparation, sterilization, and humidification. The use of water treatment compounds called “neutralizing amines” can be a source of confusion, especially where plant steam is used for humidification and sterilization. Recently updated standards provide clear guidance on neutralizing amine use in hospital steam boiler systems.