[Histonet] re: Isopropyl vs Ethanol
Hobbs, Carl
carl.hobbs <@t> kcl.ac.uk
Sat Oct 4 12:47:43 CDT 2008
I never use ethanol for any histological-based system.
I use IMS (Industrial methylated spirit/ Industrial Denatured Alcohol -IDA )
Is IMS less/more expensive than IPA?
I use IMS for pwax processing/rehydrating/dehydrating my pwax sections.
( us Brits will most likely use 74OP = ~99%: VWR list price is £135 for 25 L. However, every large Organisation buys it considerably cheaper.)
Rene's suggestion to use IPA for pwax processing is a very good alternative: you do not need to use a "clearing " agent, like xylene.
(Of course, your tissues will not "clear", lol: in the old days it was an indicator that the tissue was ready to move on to the next stage....these days we just rely on Protocols ;-)
In my experience, IPA does not dissolve paraffin wax at RT BUT, at the 60C temp. of wax in a tissue processor/wax oven if processing by hand, IPA and wax are entirely miscible.
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