Phosphate buffered formalin followed by concentrated alcohol will produce these phosphate salts. To prevent this, formalin should be followed by alcohol of 70% or less. Also, when you change your processing solutions, you can do a water flush (we do first 4 solutions - 2 formalin 2 alcohol) to dissolve any salts that may be built up in the lines.
Brandi Higgins HT(ASCP), BS On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Adrienne Aperghis Kavanagh < aaperg...@uspath.com> wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > Has anyone ever seen a (salt?) precipitate in their alcohols following > formalin? While changing the processor this morning, I noticed a > precipitate in the 80% alcohol and 95% alcohol (NOT in the 70% alcohol). It > is white and grainy. The alcohols were otherwise unaffected. > > We are using a 10% NBF containing: > Formaldehyde > Water > Sodium Phosphate, monobasic > Sodium Phosphate, dibasic > Methanol > > And our alcohols are all reagent grade. > > Any help would be very much appreciated! Thank you in advance! > > > Adrienne Aperghis Kavanagh > US PATH > 30 W. Century Road > Suite 255 > Paramus NJ 07652 > > > _______________________________________________ > Histonet mailing list > Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu > http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet > _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet