Your tweezers are probably one of your most frequently used tools in the medicine cabinet. They're all you need to remove ingrown hairs, splinters and other small objects from your skin. That's why it's important for them to be sterilized after every use. There are two ways to do this: boiling water or using an ultraviolet light machine. Let's find out which method is best suited for your needs!
Boiling water is the most common method of sterilization. It can also be used for other items like thermometers and pipettes. If you're using tweezers in a lab, you need to follow the lab's procedures for sterilizing equipment. Other methods include autoclaving (heating with pressurized steam) or chemical disinfectants such as bleach solutions or alcohols that are used with high heat
You can't boil tweezers, but you can heat them in water. Boiling water is the most common method of sterilization because it uses heat to kill bacteria and other microbes that could be on your instruments. It takes about 15 minutes for water to get to boiling point at sea level--but if you're at a higher altitude, the boiling point will be lower (and therefore take longer).
If there's no way for your temperature gauge to reach 212 F (100 C), there are other ways:
The boiling point of water is dependent on its pressure, which is determined by the altitude. At sea level, the boiling temperature of water is 100 degrees Celsius (212F). As you go higher in elevation, air pressure decreases and therefore so does your ability to boil water. On Mount Everest (a whopping 8,848 meters above sea level), it takes about 15 minutes for water to get hot enough to boil!
The amount of time it takes to sterilize your tweezers depends on their size and how long they're exposed to the boiling water. The larger an object is, the longer it will take for it to fully sterilize.
In general, if you have a small tweezers that are only exposed for about 10 seconds, then they should be fine. But if you have larger tweezers with more surface area (like Zirconium) or something that has been soaked in alcohol before being submerged in water (like surgical instruments), then there may be more bacteria present on your tool and this could lead to less successful sterilization results.
Sterilizing your tweezers after every use is the most effective way of keeping them sterile, and it will also make them last longer than if you just disinfected them once a day.
If you don't have access to a sterilizer, then the next best thing is to wash your tweezers with soap and water before each use, then wipe them dry with a paper towel or cloth.
Boiling tweezers in water is one way of sterilizing them, but there are other methods as well.
Autoclaving is another common method used to sterilize medical instruments. This involves putting your surgical instruments into an autoclave machine that uses high temperatures and pressure to kill germs on the tools. Autoclaves are often used in hospitals because they can be very effective at killing bacteria and viruses on your tweezers with very little time spent doing it--one minute for each inch (2 cm) of length is normal for most items being sterilized this way, so if you have long tweezers that measure 4 inches (10 cm) then you'd need about four minutes total inside an autoclave machine before taking them out again!
Dry heat sterilization takes longer than boiling but still keeps things relatively simple: just place your items on trays inside an oven set at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius) until they reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 Celsius).
So, if you want to sterilize your tweezers, there are a few different ways to do it. Boiling water is probably the most common method of sterilization, but you can also use alcohol or hydrogen peroxide solution. The important thing is that you keep your tweezers clean so they don't spread germs around when used on other people's skin!