Silicone is a preferred material for tubing in a wide variety of situations because of its fantastic range or properties. Silicone is non-toxic and has excellent heat and UV resistance. The material is also easy to clean and sterilise, making it ideal in environments where hygiene is critical, such as in food production and medical or pharmaceutical industries.
Hilltop Products offers silicone tubing products in different sizes and colours. We keep a wide range of stock, ensuring that we can meet demand and get orders out as quickly as possible.
Our website includes information and downloadable specifications to help you choose the best product and our expert sales team is always on hand to offer technical support and answer any additional questions you may have.
How To Clean Silicone Tubing
If you are using silicone tubing in a food environment - in a homebrew set up, soft drink dispensing machine or a food processing facility - it is important that you clean your lines regularly.
Silicone is used as a substitute for technically inferior rubber and plastic products for several reasons. One of the biggest is that it is easy to clean.
Silicone tubing is perfect for homebrewing set ups because it can be boiled to clean off all the gunk that builds up on the inside of your hoses. It should still be done regularly to prevent build-up of blockages and unsavoury smells.
In other uses, for example in the automotive industry, cleaning may not have to be so regularly and interior pipe cleaning may not be necessary at all.
One of the easiest methods is to use hot soapy water to wipe down tubes or push through tubes to clean the interior. Remember that silicone is very heat resistant so it doesn’t matter how hot you get the water.
Some cleaning products will react negatively with silicone and discolour or damage it. You should avoid using WD40 and petroleum-based cleaning products.
How To Sterilise Silicone Tubing
One of the reasons silicone is used in a variety of medical instruments and equipment is because it is easy to sterilise.
There are several methods of sterilisation which should normally be carried out in a medical laboratory.
Gamma irradiation is a widely used method of sterilisation for silicone tubing, but the technique may result in some changes to the silicone including a higher propensity for the material to kink.
Electron beam irradiation is an alternative to gamma rays with similar physical effects.
Ethylene oxide is another effective sterilisation method for most silicone materials. The ethylene oxide is absorbed by the silicone and must be removed prior to the machine’s use.
