Fluid Collections
Contents
Statement of Purpose
These links and documents contain information about best practices for fluid collections relevant to natural history collections.
Introduction
Importance of stable environment for long-term preservation
Unstable storage environment accelerates deterioration
-Warmer temperatures speed up deterioration processes
-An increase of 10°C doubles chemical reactions
-Extraction of lipids and proteins goes faster
-Cooler temperatures condense lipids and promote paraformaldehyde formation
-Fluctuations in the temperature and humidity of the storage environment stress specimens, containers and their seals. Relative humidity is temperature dependant, and even short exposures to relative humidity over 65% can trigger a mold outbreak.
Temperature based expansion of ethanol
- At 20 deg C, ethanol has a coefficient of expansion 40x glass, however water has a coefficient of expansion 8x glass. An increase in temperature causes fluid levels in a jar of ethanol to rise and can result on stress to the lid and seal. Ideally, leave 10% headspace in containers of alcohol-based preservatives.
Contributors
Source Material
Text sourced from Baseline Standards for Fluid Collections, workshop by Dirk Neumann & Julian Carter https://pfc2018.sciencesconf.org/data/program/Workshop_baseline_standards_fluid_collections_part2_Carter.pdf
Links
Consensus Documents
Community Standards
Review Documents
References
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