[3dem] Advice needed on cryo Dewars

Tue Feb 10 08:41:43 PST 2015

Hi Natesh

By dry ICE, do you mean dry ice (i.e. solid carbon dioxide). If so, it won’t work: it sublimates at –78 °C, well above devitrification temperature (around –135°C).

Best
Benoit

De : Natesh Ramanathan <natesh at iisertvm.ac.in<mailto:natesh at iisertvm.ac.in>>
Date : mardi, 10 février 2015 10:18
À : Mazdak Radjainia <mazdak at mazdak.de<mailto:mazdak at mazdak.de>>
Cc : "3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu<mailto:3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>" <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu<mailto:3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>>
Objet : Re: [3dem] Advice needed on cryo Dewars

Dear Karim, Mazdak and All,
        In continuation, I too have found World courier very reliable and they can ship samples at desired temp. and they will give you a temperature log
as well at various time intervals during the journey.
        Has anybody tried shipping cryo frozen grids on Dry ICE?
        I would think that shipping in Dry Shipper and Dry ICE would have same effect.  May be Dry ICE is better?
        If you have any experience, please can you share your thoughts?
Best Regards,
Natesh

On 10 February 2015 at 13:18, Mazdak Radjainia <mazdak at mazdak.de<mailto:mazdak at mazdak.de>> wrote:
Dear Karim,

I've send samples from New Zealand to Europe on three occasions (4 dry-shippers in total), which is probably as far as anyone will ever ship grids. I had concerns but it works remarkably well. We used World Courier for shipping our CXR-100s because FedEx New Zealand wouldn't do it. Couple of lessons I learned along the way include:

1. Be careful with how you secure your grid boxes. I put my grids in circular boxes, which I locked with a handling rod like the one you find here (item 71165-50 at http://www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/products/grids/accessories.aspx). All my grids fell out the first time I send samples to NeCEN. I think thermal expansion/contraction and vibrations during transport can cause the screws to become undone. Fortunately, we had enough uncontaminated areas left despite the grid sitting completely dry at the bottom of the Falcon tube!
2. Dry-shippers conform with IATA regulations and you can take them as carry-on but it's best to check with your airline and let them know. Singapore Airlines was fine with it.
3. Consider buying a hard case for your dry-shipper particularly if you are of Middle-Eastern appearance as much as I enjoyed having an entire subway train section during Munich's morning rush hour to myself. Might not work as well in let's say NYC and 'Fragile'/'This way up' stickers don't mean much to airport staff.

Overall, frozen grids are a lot more resilient than I thought. The seal on one of my dry-shippers had been broken and someone had clearly looked inside at some stage in transit. Still no issue, which means that you can refrain from placing a mouse trap on top of your samples as tempting as it is.

Anyway, good luck!

cheers
Mazdak

On 4 February 2015 at 01:55, Karim benzerara <karim.benzerara at impmc.upmc.fr<mailto:karim.benzerara at impmc.upmc.fr>> wrote:
Hello

We will perform x-ray microscopy observations on cryo-samples deposited on TEM grids and prepared by plunge and freeze (something like 20-30 grids). We will prepare the samples in Paris and we will send them by FEDEX to Berkeley. Would you recommend a specific DEWAR that will hold the trip and keep our samples frozen for several days? What volume should I go for? What brand? We are very new to this so apologize for the basic question.

Thank you very much

Karim Benzerara

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--
----------------------------------------------------------
"Live Simply and do Serious Things .. "
- Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS

"In Science truth always wins"
- Max Ferdinand Perutz OM FRS
----------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Ramanathan Natesh
Ramalingaswami Fellow-DBT, Assistant Professor
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram (IISER-TVM),
1st floor, Dept. of Computer Science & Engg. Building,
CET Campus, Engineering College P.O.,
Trivandrum,  695016, Kerala, India

natesh at iisertvm.ac.in<mailto:natesh at iisertvm.ac.in>
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/C-4488-2008
http://iisertvm.ac.in/~natesh
Ph. 0091- 471-2599403
Fax.0091-471-2597427
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