Shipping Glutaraldehyde within Australia

Shipping Glutaraldehyde (GA) by air now costs real money ‐ we suggest switching to prepared Paraformaldehyde or using road freight to the Eastern States.

GA's dangerous goods classification has become more stringent, and shipping by air to Australian destinations incurs additional costs of over $200. Shipping by road to Qld, Vic, and NSW. Road freight to Tas and SA is marginal.

GA deteriorates with time and temperature. Over time GA forms a polymer. This is particularly undesirable in cyto‐ and histochemistry procedures. Slightly degraded GA containing some of the polymer, protects against osmotic shock when used for primary fixation. However, major contamination by the polymer degrades fixation. Stored frozen, GA remains a good fixative many years, refrigerated it lasts for at least one year. At room temperature and higher, degradation occurs but this is a slow process and some suppliers suggest medium term storage at room temperature.

The alternatives:

1. Ship by air and pay the rather high freight costs Australian companies charge.
2. Ship by road to the Eastern States. We are located in Townsville and two days is scarcely enough to reach Brisbane by truck. We never ship refrigerated goods on Thursday or Friday, but ProSciTech cannot guarantee shipping schedules.
   We ship GA with some ice and even when thawed, the GA should be good for a considerable time ‐ the reason for ice is to protect GA against very high temperatures which may occur in transit.
3. Consider changing primary fixation from GA to prepared pure formaldehyde, which is made from paraformaldehyde. It can be made in the lab from powdered paraformaldehyde; the laboratory produced product is only good for one day. The commercial product has a shelf life of at least two years at room temperature, and it was originally used for primary fixation in cytochemistry and cyto‐immunology. This fixative has already been widely adapted for routine fixation procedures, using protocols as for GA.

Since FA requires no refrigeration, trucking the higher concentrations is no problem. Furthermore, the 8 and 4% solutions can be taken onto a plane since they are not classified as DG; we can also ship these by air when required.