4/1/97
I am looking for a special centrifuge tube that allows you
to place a TEM grid in it. When the tube is spun the
sample settles on the grid. Does anyone know who carries
this tube.--Thanks in advance
Gregory Rudomen
Greg@UMIC.SUNYSB.EDU
516-444-3126
University Microscopy Imaging Center
S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook
We have two devices for sedimenting material onto a TEM grid. The first
is a Beckman Airfuge with the EM90 rotor. The grid is placed on a 5 mm
square of 0.025 um nitrocellulose and covered with a film of parlodian.
This sandwich is placed in the rotor w/ the grid facing the sample prior
to sedimentation.
The second device makes use of the 3 mm tubes for a Beckman
ultracentrifuge. The tubes have round bottoms but we make semi-
spherical inserts out of epoxy that fit in the bottom and leave a flat
surface for the grid to rest on. The inserts are made by pouring a drop
of epoxy in a tube, allowing it to polymerize and cutting it out of the
tube. We then sand them smooth to reduce their size slightly so they
will easily slide into another tube. The inserts are reusable and
sterilizable.
Joe Neilly
Microscopy and Microanalysis
Abbott Laboratories
North Chicago, IL 60064
NEILLY.JOSEPH@igate.pprd.abbott.com
This airfuge is designed especially for small volume samples and they have
a really
nicely designed rotor just for putting a grid in the bottom and pelleting
your sample
right onto your grid
If you already have the airfuge, the rotor is part #347844 and the price was
$2,270.00 (back in 1995). I am not quite sure of the price of the airfuge
itself,
but be warned, Beckman is not known for being reasonable. I think that the
price
was somewhere in the neighborhood of $20K.
Good Luck, Peggy Bisher
Margaret E. Bisher
NEC Research Institute
4 Independence Way
Princeton, NJ 08540.
Tel.: (609) 951-2629
Fax: (609) 951-2496
e-mail: peggy@research.nj.nec.com
In the last Fullam catalog I have (1992-93), EFFA Centrifuge Tubes are
pictured on page 49. Cost of the tubes then was $135.00/balanced pair
(#11450). They also make some to hold No. 00 BEEM capsules, which are
the ones I've used in the past (pretty nifty). These are good up to
6000g. They also listed some others that are good up to 34,000g with
which I've had no experience. Don't know if they're still available,
you'll have to check.
Heather Owen
p.s. I have no connection with Ernest F. Fullam, Inc. - just a
satisfied customer.>
Heather A. Owen, Director
Electron Microscope Laboratory
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
(414)229-6816
owenha@csd.uwm.edu