POLYMERS & MATERIALS RESEARCH

Our microtomes have helped engineers and scientists cut polymers for the study of mechanical properties

POLYMERS & MATERIALS APPLICATIONS

Cut polymers

We have received many requests for guidance on cutting polymers, resins, and other materials for research in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering. As a result, we have developed our microtomes to be able to cut polymers and other hard materials, as well as matrices from biological materials for tissue engineering applications. Such applications include:

    • Matrix & scaffolding sectioning for tissue bioengineering
    • Polymer sectioning for mechanical and materials science engineering
    • Paint defect analysis (injection molding with primers and paints) in the automotive industry
    • Hard materials including bone for biology and histopathology research

COMMON PROBLEMS WITH SECTIONING POLYMERS & HARDER MATERIALS

One key problem with making thin sections from polymers and other materials is that these components are often too hard or different to slice with current market vibratomes. Other slicing issues include inconsistent thicknesses, and significant shearing of polymers, resins, and matrices during the cutting process. For biomedical engineering, such shearing of surfaces can be detrimental to tissue scaffolds or carrier materials. For mechanical engineering, this type of damage from usual vibratomes prevents accurate assessment and data collection.

MAKING BETTER POLYMER & MATERIALS SLICES

Compresstome® Vibrating Microtome

The quality of your experiments will depend on the quality of your tissue slices and network matrices. The Compresstome® vibrating microtome has been scientifically demonstrated to create superior sections for tissue engineering. How does the Compresstome® do this? Our vibrating microtome does so by:

    • Stabilizing the specimen during the cutting process through 360-degree agarose embedding
    • Utilizing a high-frequency vibrating mechanism to reduce trauma to the top surface of slices
    • Reducing shearing by eliminating the Z-axis deflection of the cutting blade using our patented Auto Zero-Z® technology

Rotary Microtome

We have designed our rotary microtomes to be able to cut through polymers, resins, and other hard materials. This allows engineers and scientists to study mechanical properties of these materials even at the nanoscale.

PRECISIONARY ROTARY MICROTOMES

Rotary microtomes are routinely used for making paraffin-wax embedded tissue sections for histology and pathology. Because they are used for high volume sectioning, rotary microtomes need to be robust.

 

Precisionary Instruments offers a full line of high quality rotary microtomes for histopathology, research, and clinical purposes. Our microtomes give you reliable sections over a range of tissue slice thicknesses.

Rotary Microtomes: RF600 Model
Manual model
RF-600
Rotary Microtomes: RF800 Model
Semi-automated model
RF-800
Rotary Microtomes: RF1000 Model
Fully automated model
RF-1000
Compare Rotary Microtome Models

REFERENCES AND PROTOCOLS

Microtomes from Precisionary Instruments have been used by labs around the world, and cited in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications. Explore these references by experiment, animal model, and organ system. For convenience, we also put together key experimental protocols to help you.
Go to References
Go to Protocols