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. _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet