Recycling Coomassie destain

[Chia Jin Ngee]

Wolfgang Schechinger (wgschech at med.uni-tuebingen.de) wrote:
: Hi. 

: I suggest distillation of the mix. But I can't warrant that, if you 
: store the sol'n, that you also will get methyl acetate since MeOH and 
: HOAc will react (in a chemical equilibrium) to the ester. I only can 
: say that I used a premixed sol'n stored at RT for more than three 
: weeks without problems.

: You alternatively could switch to a more water soluble dye a ponceau 
: red, that is easily destained with a buffer containing gelatin or 
: othe proteins.

: Wolfgang

: > Dear colleagues,
: > 
: > In order to reduce the amount of chemical waste, our lab would like
: > to recycle the MeOH/HAc destain we use for Coomassie stained gels,
: > by removing the stain. Has anyone figured out a convenient way of
: > doing this? Is activated carbon the best thing to use, or will
: > filtration through a thick stack of paper do?

I suggest that you microwave the stained gels in water. Check Technical 
Tips Online for details. A rather environmentally friendly destain which 
is cheap and can be discarded rather easily.

I've tried it and it really works.

--

Jin Ngee, Chia		
(Genie, the OligoMan)
mcblab47 at leonis.nus.sg

Views and opinions expressed are solely mine and not of my employer's. 
Any further grievances can be settled over a Virtua Fighter 3 match.