You have inherited some old glass baby milk bottles from your grandmother and you would like to use them instead of plastic bottles. The bottles are placed into a large metal container and placed in the oven, at 325 degrees F for about 2 hours. What factor would you change if you wanted the sterilization to occur much quicker?

A. Use a pressure cooker to sterilize the bottles, in steam: Steam under pressure (autoclaving or a pressure cooker) achieves high temperatures (e.g., 121 °C / 250 °F) with moist heat that inactivates microbes and spores much faster than dry heat ovens; switching to steam under pressure will greatly shorten sterilization time.

B. Increase the temperature of the oven by 5 degrees: A 5 °F increase is negligible relative to the large temperature and time changes required for faster sterilization and would not meaningfully speed up the process.

C. Pour an antimicrobial chemical into the bottles before placing into the oven: Adding chemicals may leave residues that are unsafe for baby feeding and would not substitute for validated sterilization; it also may not speed thermal sterilization.

D. Place the bottles outside in the sunlight and then place in the oven: Sunlight has limited disinfection ability (UV exposure) and will not meaningfully reduce the time required for oven sterilization; this step would not reliably speed the process.