Gas permeability of silicone oil?

[peter]

On Apr 1, 11:39 am, Tom Anderson <ucga... from ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Mar 2007, peter wrote:
> > On Mar 30, 10:03 am, Tom Anderson <ucga... from ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > I use a silicone oil to reduce evaporation from dishes i'm looking at
> > > on our inverted scope; my experiments are generally less than an hour
> > > long, so gas exchange isn't a huge deal, but a colleague wants to do
> > > some much longer experiments, and we're not sure if the oil i use is
> > > suitable.
>
> > I don't know the answer of the question you asked, but if the
> > evaporation is an issue, why don't you use humid chamber for long
> > experiments? I am sure that there are microscopes equipped with small
> > boxes that keep CO2 and humidity controlled.
>
> True. The microscope my colleague wants to use has a heated, CO2-gassed
> chamber, but it's not humidified. He's going to put a beaker or dish of
> water in there, but is still worried about evaporation. We could get a
> properly humidifed chamber, but this would involve persuading our
> microscope technician, ordering it, fitting it, etc, whereas a suitable
> oil is an order to Sigma away!
>
> tom
>
> --
> Tom Anderson, MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, UCL, London WC1E 6BT
> (t) +44 (20) 76797264   (f) +44 (20) 76797805   (e) thomas.ander... from ucl.ac.uk

Hi Tom,
If you already have the heated CO2 chamber on your microscope you can
easily put couple of wet napkins and you will have a nice humidity in
it.
my2c
Peter