Many years ago we stored isopentane in our lab refrigerator and lo and behold we came in one morning to find that the refrigerator was a mess  because of a fire due to an spark that ignited the isopentane. Now I'm gun shy and do not have isopentane in the lab.

We developed the Gentle Jane method which only uses liquid nitrogen, which is safe with proper ventilation. We found that immersion in LN2 had problems; a vapor envelop and also cracking of the tissue. The Gentle Jane method chills a heat extractor to LN2 temperature and then contacts the tissue and embedding medium. The tissue is snap frozen in 8-10 seconds. The low temperature of the LN2 (-196C) and the thermal exchange the heat extractor provides, produce small ice crystals which are not damaging to the cells,. The freezing artifact is minimized
See the Gentle Jane method on www.instrumedics.com 

Bernice
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