Xylene is becoming more and more of a nuisance material and a problem
for us in use and in disposal. We are still able to use it but with
increasing concern.
We have been able to eliminate xylene from our staining procedures
altogether in our small laboratory.
We use a hair dryer to dry the slides in the rack after water or alcohol.
Since we read our slides right away, we have been using cedarwood oil to
clear and mount the slides. It's cheap, and makes lovely slides with no
crystals or "floaties" or other artifacts. It's easy to clean up
without any xylene or toluene. It's not permanent but we can remount the
slides with a permanent mounting medium if we need to keep the slides
for some reason.
*
We also have found several different methods for eliminating xylene from
the paraffin infiltration process,
and we have not used xylene for dewaxing for more than 2 years now.
On 05/26/2016 03:07 AM, Mike Toole wrote:
Thank you Beth,
It’s good to know that someone else had tried this and had very good results.
The method you suggest is very much in line with the recommendations from René.
He did recommend using a drying oven at 60°C to help ensure complete removal of
any water or alcohol. And, that absolute dryness was a requirement for
coverslipping without artifact such as the appearance of sand like grains or
cornflakes.
Just to reiterate, was the field method performed at ambient temperature
without the aid of a drying oven? And, just a thought, I suppose if the lack of
electricity was an issue in a field setting, that perhaps a solar oven made
with plywood and glass could be used to elevate temperature for drying.
Do you know if altering the method for final clearing would require validation?
Mike
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