Difference among Antibacterial Agent Bacteriostatic Agent Bacteria Biocide and Bacteria Sterilizer

Antibacterial agent, bacteriostatic agent, bacteria biocide and bacteria sterilizer seem to have similar content, but they are actually different from each other.

1. What is antibacterial agent, bacteriostatic agent, bacteria biocide and bacteria sterilizer

1) Antibacterial agent refers to the preparation which can kill bacteria or control bacteria growth and multiplication.

2) Bacteriostatic agent can control bacteria growth and multiplication but has no effect on killing them;

3) Bacteria biocide is the chemical or biological preparation to inactivate bacteria. (It is categorized into biological biocides, together with virus, mycobacterium tuberculosis, microorganism, fungi and spore biocides);

4) Bacteria sterilizer can sterilize all bacteria.

The definition shows that antibacterial agent includes bacteriostatic agent and bacteria biocide. But bacteriostatic agent can only control bacteria instead of killing them.

2. What is disinfectant

It refers to the preparation which contains one kind or more kinds of chemical or biological bacteria disinfecting ingredients for disinfection. It can be seen from the definition that there is no relation between bacteriostatic agent and disinfectant.

3. Inspection to products (antibacterial agent and bacteriostatic agent as examples)

Remark: The tests marked with + are necessary, that with - are not necessary and that with ± are optional.

It can be found clearly that antibacterial agents kill bacteria while bacteriostatic agents only inhibit them.

On the other hand, some antibacterial agents are only tested to inhibit bacteria. In this case, even although they are claimed to be able to kill bacteria, no experiment on their ability to kill bacteria is carried out so that actually the claim cannot be detected. Therefore, while buying these similar products, do be careful to distinguish them.