Gaseous sterilization is long-established but it is increasingly being reassessed and adopted due to the growth in the markets for medical devices and for single-use sterile disposable technologies for pharmaceuticals. Gaseous sterilization is not an exact term and there are different types of gaseous sterilization (and a further distinction between gases and vapors). The first division is with the agents and here sterilizing gases include: formaldehyde, ethylene oxide, propylene oxide, ozone, and chlorine dioxide (1). A second division is with vapors, such as peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. In drawing out the gasvapor distinction, a gas is a substance that has a single defined thermodynamic state at room temperature; in contrast, a vapor is a substance that is a mixture of two phases at room temperature, namely gaseous and liquid phase (2).
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