[Histonet] re: Isopropyl vs Ethanol

[Hobbs, Carl]

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.