MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I wish to start creating some more permanent mounts and I have come across a hurdle. Namely, I can't seem to find a supplier for any mounting media in Canada. Most of the sites I have visited cater only to institutions and will not deliver to a residential address. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?

Hi Aslan,
a couple of hints:
- Walter Dioni wrote some articels about alternative mounting media, available in the Micscape issues and as a little book
- I'm sure you have plenty of the mounting media in Canda that I used here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8130
- For diatoms Diatoms.nl makes a nice Pleurax, they probably sell worldwide.
- You might hunt for Euparal, very easy to use with Isopropanol as intermedium
- LOCA TP 2500 (for smartphone display repair is a nice UV-hardening medium, I made great radiolaria slides with it
- Dammar resin and gummi arabicum like this: https://www.modulor.de/gutenberg-gummie ... -60-g.html can be used for some objects
- Hobbyst46 invented a diatom mountant made from easy to obtain substances: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7847 Not bad, I would say!

Bob

Hi Aslan
You might take a look Electron Microscopy Sciences. In particular https://www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/pr ... aspx#17997 .
They are based in the states, but I have ordered from them in the past and received very good service. Many of their products, though apparently not all, are available through amazon.ca and I have ordered that way as well.
Tom W.

MicroBob wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 02, 2019 8:06 pm

...
- Hobbyst46 invented a diatom mountant made from easy to obtain substances: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7847 Not bad, I would say!

Thanks a lot, Bob. may I just add a clarification comment:
I tried various "home-bound" gentle diatom cleaning protocols and the most successful one so far was based on SDS+EDTA+weak H2O2, which I adopted from literature articles and modified. My present-continuous experiments are with persulfate - successful but only preliminary results so far.
Mounting: NOA61 is a commercial UV-curing glass cement, which works quite well for diatoms, but sometimes does not penetrate into the frustule so the latter contains an ugly air bubble. The mountant I invented (IMHO) is a thick solution of styrofoam in cinammon bark oil. It is easy to make and penetrates the frustules, but is only semi-permanent; after 4-6 months, components of the cinammon bark oil crystallize within the slide and gradually ruin it.
So, the best permanent diatom mountant is still Pleurax (or perhaps Naphrax).

Hobbyst46 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 02, 2019 9:12 pm

NOA61 is a commercial UV-curing glass cement

Hi Doron, sorry, I got that mixed up!
Bob

Thank you all. I will check out the microscopy-UK website. I have already gone through a few articles there but the depth and breadth of what I have found there is a little intimidating and will take me a while to get through.