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Introduction to Freeze Drying & Freeze Substituition incorporating K750X & K775X

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Principle
(a) Sublimation Considerations
(b) Freezing Considerations
3. Practice

INTRODUCTION

The technique of Freeze Drying as a method of specimen dehydration and its subsequent preparation for viewing in both S.E.M. and T.E.M. has been well established for some time and the detailed procedures available are outside the range of this article. In any case they vary considerably in their application and users have a wide choice of what parameters to apply for their particular application.

In its simplest terms we freeze the water in the wet specimen and then remove it by process of sublimation, from solid to vapour phase, maintaining both its structure and chemical composition as realistically as possible.

This avoids the use of chemical dehydration and can be conveniently used to prepare bulk specimens or embedded sections for subsequent S.E.M. or T.E.M. studies, in particular utilising X-Ray microanalysis for the study of diffusible substances.

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