Isopropyl Alcohol as a substitute for Ethanol.

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MicroMan2
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Isopropyl Alcohol as a substitute for Ethanol.

#1 Post by MicroMan2 » Mon Feb 22, 2016 12:14 am

I am very interested in using ethanol for fixatives, Walter Dioni's protocols are truly inspiring but is Isopropyl Alcohol a valid substitute for fixatives such as Clarke's and the like?

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mrsonchus
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Re: Isopropyl Alcohol as a substitute for Ethanol.

#2 Post by mrsonchus » Mon Feb 22, 2016 4:25 am

Hi, I use IPA exclusively instead of the far harder to get Ethanol - but not on it's own as a fixative, then again I deal only with botanical tissue, what type of tissue (plant or animal) are you working with? I understand that Clarke's is a simple acid-alcohol formula? The addition of the acid (acetic) is to counteract shrinkage due to the OH I believe, and if you were to add the correct proportion of Formalin to Clarke's you would have FAA, which I use exclusively as my botanical fixative.

Here's a superb little table with comparisons per formula of some fixatives,
http://stainsfile.info/StainsFile/prepa ... edient.htm

Hope this helps a bit, basically if you're fixing plant-tissue the use Formal Acid Alcohol (FAA) which can also be used for permanent wet-storage of tissue for later processing etc. :)
John B

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