2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Development of new stain method for transmission electron microscope and demonstration of the usefulness

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24655101
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Polymer chemistry
Research Institution	Shinshu University
Principal Investigator	HANABUSA Kenji 信州大学, 総合工学系研究科, 教授 (60126696)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	透過型電子顕微鏡 / 染色法 / ポリシロキサン
Research Abstract	The purpose of this study was to prove the usefulness of polysiloxanes as a new stain for transmission electron microscope. Thus far osmium (VIII) oxide, which is very expensive and extremely harmful, has been used for the stain in transmission electron microscope observation. We proved that polysiloxanes have useful potential as stain instead of osmium (VIII) oxide. Polysiloxanes are characterized of cheap, commercial available, and innoxious. Polysiloxane having high molecular weight is not necessarily for effective staining. In fact, low molecular weight siloxanes having high boiling point and oligosiloxanes also show effective staining for transmission electron microscope.