autoclave

autoclave

1. a strong sealed vessel used for chemical reactions at high pressure

2. an apparatus for sterilizing objects (esp surgical instruments) or for cooking by means of steam under pressure

3. Civil engineering a vessel in which freshly cast concrete or sand-lime bricks are cured very rapidly in high-pressure steam

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

autoclave

[′ȯd·ō‚klāv]

(engineering)

An airtight vessel for heating and sometimes agitating its contents under high steam pressure; used for industrial processing, sterilizing, and cooking with moist or dry heat at high temperatures.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

autoclave

A pressure vessel in which an environment of steam at high pressure may be produced, usually at a high temperature; used in the curing of concrete products and in the testing of hydraulic cement for soundness.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Autoclave

 

an apparatus for performing various processes under elevated temperatures and above-atmospheric pressure. The reaction is speeded up under these conditions, and the product yield is increased. Autoclaves may be rotary, rocking, horizontal, vertical, or columnar. If necessary, autoclaves can be provided with internal, external, or outboard heat exchangers; with mechanical, electromagnetic, or pneumatic agitating devices; and with instrumentation for measuring and controlling pressure, temperature, liquid fill level, and so forth. The design and basic parameters of a full-scale industrial autoclave vary widely, with capacities ranging from several dozen cm³ to hundreds of m³; autoclaves are designed to withstand pressures of up to 150MN/m³ (1,500 kgf/cm²) at temperatures of up to 500°C. Packless autoclaves driven by splashproof enclosed electric motors, requiring no seal, are promising for the chemical process industry. The rotor in this motor is mounted directly on the agitator shaft and is covered by an airtight, thin-walled enclosure of nonmagnetic material which does not prevent the magnetic lines of force from extending from the stator of the electric motor to its rotor.

Autoclaves are used in the chemical industry in the production of herbicides and organic semifinished products and dyes and in synthesis processes; in hydrometallurgy for leaching with subsequent recovery from solutions of non-ferrous and precious metals and rare elements; in the rubber industry for vulcanizing rubber products; in the canning industry for sterilizing canned goods; and in the construction materials industry. Autoclaves are also widely used in medicine.

REFERENCES

Korndorf, B. A. Tekhnika vysokikh davlenii v khimii. Leningrad-Moscow, 1952.
Planovskii A. N., and P. A. Gurevich. Apparatura promyshlen-nosti poluproduktov i krasitelei. [2nd ed.] Moscow, 1961.

G. M. VEKSLER and V. A. ZAITSEV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.