[3dem] glow discharge carbon coated grids several times?

[Tobias Furstenhaupt]

Dear colleagues,

we regulary use holey carbon coated copper grids in our plunge freezer. Naturally we glowdischarge them before. We use a Pelco easiglow at 15 mA, 0.4 mbar for 30 seconds on each side).
To be on the safe side, we glow discharge always 1-2 grids more than we probably need for plungefreezing. Does anybody of you have any experience if leftover grids can be reused? Ie that we put the grids back in the box and glow discharge them a second time and use them? 
Formvar coated grids dont survive a second glow discharge (the plastic rips broadly open) but what about a carbon coat? Does anybody know?

cheers 
Tobias 


----------------------------------- 
Tobias Fürstenhaupt, PhD 
head of Electron Microscopy 
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) 
Pfotenhauerstrasse 108 
01307 Dresden, Germany 

mail: furstenh at mpi-cbg.de 
phone: (+49) (0)351 210-2690 
cell: (+49) (0)176 / 44498706 (NEW!)