[NHCOLL-L:4091] Re: Possible replacement to alcohol storage?

[Brad Hubley]

If anyone has any experience working with this fluid for the
preservation of natural history specimens, would you mind posting it to
the list?  We are looking for alternatives to ethyl alcohol as a storage
medium for gallery specimens.
 
Thanks very much,
Brad
 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
  Brad Hubley
  Entomology Collection Manager
  Department of Natural History
  Royal Ontario Museum
  100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario           
  Canada    M5S 2C6

  Phone:  1-416-586-5764 
  FAX:      1-416-586-5553 
  email:  bradh at rom.on.ca 
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


>>> "Del Re, Christine" <delre at mpm.edu> 11/26/2008 4:37 PM >>>

Is anyone familiar with this new alcohol storage replacement, and what
it can do to the scientific utility of specimens vs. the materials we
are more familiar with?  I understand it is being used at the
Smithsonian and would interested to hear from anyone there involved, or
if any testing has been done.
 
Thank you in advance, Chris Del Re
 
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Novec/Home/Solutions/Museum/#specimens
 
Calamari in Smithsonian's new Ocean Hall
Back in August, the area science writer’s group got a sneak preview of
the Smithsonian’s new Sant Ocean Hall, which opened in September. The
main reason was super-sized calamari – a 25-foot-long female specimen of
a giant squid. This is calamari that would happily eat you – or another
giant squid. Our expert said they tend to congregate in groups of about
the same body size, which minimizes the threat of being eaten by one’s
neighbor.
The Smithsonian used a new technology developed by 3M to preserve it.
The fluid, called Novec, was originally developed as an
electronics-friendly fire suppressant. One representative said they had
operated laptop computers that were completely immersed in the stuff;
another said one researcher had tossed a cell phone into it and called
himself.  

Post 911, Smithsonian realized that the total volume of alcohol used to
preserve specimens in its collections had approximately the explosive
power of a fully loaded  747. So, a non-volatile fluid that didn’t
bleach or stain tissue and didn’t cloud up over time was of great
interest.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20081127/fd45c759/attachment.html