Sterilization may refer to:
- Sterilization (microbiology), killing or inactivation of micro-organisms
- Soil steam sterilization, a farming technique that sterilizes soil with steam in open fields or greenhouses
- Sterilization (medicine) renders a human unable to reproduce
- Neutering is the surgical sterilization of animals
- Irradiation induced sterility is used in the sterile insect technique
- A chemosterilant is a chemical compound that causes sterility
- Sterilization (economics), central bank operations aimed at neutralizing foreign exchange operations' impact on domestic money supply, or offset adverse consequences of large capital flows
- A very severe enough extinction event that permanently renders a planet like Earth completely uninhabitable to even microbial life.