There's an episode of the old Star Trek series (in the Dark) where the crew of the Enterprise has to confront a silicon-based form of life. Silicon was a good choice for an alternative basis for life . Why?

You would be correct, boiling water does disinfect contamination.    the property of disinfecting means to kill  germs, bacteria and other pathogens or contamination  that might cause an infection or cause a person to become sickly. a couple methods of disinfecting are using soap, other cleaning supplies or by simply "boiling" the contaminate.  the reason why boiling water disinfects certain attributes is because some cells cannot survive the heat and pressure.