This article will give you a deep understanding of the glass slide, and help you choose the suitable glass slide from the aspects of the glass slide manufacturing method, the factors that determine the characteristics of the glass slide, and the coating method of the glass slide.

How are glass slides made?

Slides are made from sand and several chemicals, limestone, and soda. Sand, sodium carbonate, and calcium carbonate are heated to 1700℃ or more than 3000℉ for about 10 hours when the sand becomes liquid. Then you pour liquid sand on a thin liquid tin and it turns into glass.

Factors Determining the Characteristics of Slide

Why coated slides identical? Why are glass slides from different companies different from each other?

The first factor is the thickness of the silane layer. How many layers of silane will you put on your slide? From published studies, we know that a good glass slide needs no more than three to eight molecular layers. Too many layers can cause instability and you may lose tissue samples.

The second factor is the extent of amino silanes covering the surface of the slide. If amino silane does not react with a hydroxyl group of glass, it becomes an unreacted group. If it happens frequently, it means that the combination of chemicals is not ideal, and it will not react as well as silane and glass.

The third factor is silane concentration. Silane has never been used at 100% concentration. Common concentrations range from 0.25% to 5%.

During the manufacturing process, the number of washes of the slide will be different when silane is placed. After washing, drying settings are also important, so people will try different temperatures to observe the performance of the final product. All of the above factors determine the characteristics of different slides, so no slide is the same. In addition, there are about 3000 different amino silanes, so the question is which one you are using.

Coated Slides Make Differences

Once you coat the slide, you create something called a hydrophobic environment. Depending on the type of glass, silane content on the glass, how you baked it, you may have slides with different characteristics.

All slides have different characteristics. We don't know how different companies dissolve their silane, what temperature they use, or how they coat slides. They use different chemicals in the manufacturing process to make different slides. Of course, once the chemical substance is on the surface of the slide, the concept of hydrophobicity will emerge, while the uncoated slide is hydrophilic.

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