Stain tubes

Detector tube A direct method for identifying airborne contaminants, also known as length-of-stain tube. It is a convenient tool for detecting and quantifying contaminants in field or emergency situations. 

Gentry SJ, Walsh PT. 1987. Eight hour TWA personal monitoring using a diffusive sampler and short-term stain tube. Am Ind Hyg Assoc J 48(3) 287-292. 

Analyze an FITC smgle-stained tube, such as FITC-CD8, scatter gating to restrict analysis to lymphocytes... 

Analyze a PE-Cy5 single-stained tube, again using scatter gating. 

Add 100 pL of a 1 300 dilution of KC57-FITC (anti-p24), diluted in FACS-wash B minus the EDTA, to one EMA-stained tube and one unstained tube per sample and add 100 pL of a 1 300 dilution of mouse-immunoglobulin-FITC-conjugate to the remaining tubes. Incubate at room temperature for 40 min. 

However it is important to be aware of the limitations of stain tubes ... 

The result obtained relates to the concentration of contaminant at the tube inlet at the precise moment the air is drawn in. Short-term stain tubes do not measure individual worker exposure. 

Cross-sensitivity may be a problem since other chemicals will sometimes interfere with a stain tube reaction. For example, the presence of xylene will interfere with stain tubes calibrated for toluene. Manufacturer s handbooks give information on the known crosssensitivities of their products. This point emphasises the need to consider the whole range of chemicals used in a process rather than just the major ones. 

Detector Tubes for Measuring Gaseous Pollutants Detector tubes, such as stain tubes and passive sampler tubes, are simple measurement devices that are available for the gaseous pollutants—CO, CO2, NO, and NO2—and for sulfur dioxide (SO2). Detector tubes are simple and cost effective and may be useful for characterizing air quahty. However, they do not provide sufficient accuracy as a measurement technique if accuracy greater than 25% is required. 

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