On Thu, 9 May 2002, Valerie Hannen wrote:

> Does anyone know a way of neutralizing picric acid crystals?

Dissolve in water. The solubility is about 1%.
Don't neutralize the acidity (especially with
ammonia) because that could generate more sensitive
explosive picrate salts. The danger of explosion
exists only with dry material. Keep everything
wet and you'll be OK.

Look in the archives at www.histosearch.com and
you'll find plenty of earlier Histonet corresponence
about picric acid, and references to published
infornmation that you can check for yourself.
----------------------------------------
John A. Kiernan
Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology
The University of Western Ontario
London,  Canada   N6A 5C1
   kiernan@uwo.ca
   http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan