Driying Specimen with Silica Gel

Silica Gel

In the world of education is needed herbarium in any form. Preserved specimens are preserved is a form of classification of living things, as described by lenneaus. Usually herbaria used for education, research and economy. In Indonesia there has been a museum herbarium with the contents of the most comprehensive in southeast asia. This is a form of government concern for education. Preserved specimen preservation is also a rare plant or animal life even in a state. With the preserved specimens of plants and animals will be able to introduce to our children and grandchildren later. Preserved specimens are preserved in the form of dry curing and wet curing. In dry curing can be done in many ways such that the experiment will be conducted with silica gel and oven microwave.

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Manufacture of preserved specimens are needed for the observation of specimens in a practical way without having to search for fresh material. Preserved specimens can be made dry or wet both in plants and animals. In the study of botany known for its preservation called herbarium specimens.

Herbarium is a picture of a plants that grow naturally in a specific location. The purpose of making herbarium is to identify and documentation. Herbarium can be either a complete plant consisting of roots, twigs, buds, leaves, flowers or a portion of the plant alone.

Herbarium is an example where the storage and collection of plant specimens that have been preserved plants in particular. In general there are two types of herbarium wet and dry.

Taxonomy is the science of plant identification and classification of living things according to certain rules. Plant taxonomy, in relation to the subject matter of classification of biodiversity on the subjects of biology, can be fun for most students, but given the plant specimens that will be used sometimes hard to find, or specimens are morphologically deformed due to the evaporation process (plants having chlorosis), can make students frustrated, upset, disappointed or even unable to objectively describe the morphology (external form) that can be observed as the key identification.

Classification activity can be an important initial activity given the classification aims to: (1) describe the characteristics of living things to distinguish each type, to be easily identifiable, (2) classify living things based on its characteristics, (3) determine the relationship of kinship between living things, and (4) know the evolution of living beings on the basis of related. While classification has important benefits that can be directly applied to human interests, namely: (1) grouping allows us to study the diverse organisms, (2) classification can be used to see the kinship between living things with each other.

One solution to get the identification of activities in a more objective classification is to use a good specimen plant condition, and can be used all the time. Specimens of this plant can be obtained by performing the process of drying the plants using silica gel. Drying of plant parts using silica gel preserved preparations can produce plants that do not differ much in morphology of both form and color. In addition to getting an ideal preparation for the classification process through the process of making preparations preserves plants, students will also gain skills that can be used to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit through the efforts of dried flowers.

  

The following are the steps of making preparations workmanship preserved plants using silica gel.

 

Selecting Part of Plant

Prepare the plants that had just picked and in good condition. The ideal time for picking is a time through the morning, where the plants are in dry conditions (non-condensing), but did not wilt in the heat.

If after the process of picking, not given treatment immediately, it should be part of the plant, placed in a vase filled with water and placed in a cold room until ready for drying.

How to Use Silica Gel

To get the best results is to use silica gel in significant amounts. Use airtight containers made ​​of plastic, glass or metal. Pour about 3 cm layer of silica gel into the container, and arrange the plants to be dried thereon to then covered completely with silica gel.

The best thing you can do is to pour the granules (granules) of silica gel around the container, then swing it slowly until the silica gel moves to the center of the container, cover all parts of the plant and fill the space between the leaves of the compound or a meeting between petal flower until all parts of the plant is really confined to silica gel.

The drying process takes between 2 to 7 days, the length of the drying process is determined by which plants will be dried. Best results is by draining only one type of plant per container. Other plants are leafy and have a thicker petal flowers require a longer drying time than thin-leaved species. The important thing to note is that the state regularly inspect the plant, because if the plant is too long kept in silica gel, they will become brittle and the petals will break (fracture).

Now we know the plant has dried, the specimens were carefully removed from the silica gel by hand or using a spatula, and the granules are still attached to the specimen is cleaned using a soft brush.

Using Silica Gel in the Microwave

Using silica gel drying process can be accelerated using a microwave oven. Microwave ovens can be a material consideration as it can shorten the drying time and save costs.

To dry plants using microwave ovens, necessary microwavebowl (microwavesafecontainer) flat big enough, silica gel, toothpicks, a small glass of water, and fresh plant specimens that have been cut. For more dry specimens, required additional silica gel and glass containers, or the subsequent drying process must wait until the silica gel used is really cool.

The size of the container or containers depending on the number of specimens of plants to be dried. Silica gel is poured just enough to cover the bottom of the container, with a height of about half an inch. Then, the container is placed into the microwave and heat on high power (high) for 3 minutes. This process is performed to further dry the silica gel crystals. Furthermore, the container removed from the microwave carefully, and left a few moments. The specimen is placed into a flat container containing silica gel that has been preheated with caution.

Next is to pour the silica gel crystals slowly onto the surface of specimens of plants, plant specimens and ensure well-covered silica gel. After that put a small glass of water and placed in the back corner of the microwave or on the edge of revolvingtray, and microwave containers containing the specimen is placed flat in the middle. Average drying time in microwave oven with 800 watts of power (high heat) is varied. Long heating in the microwave depending on the type of plants used. If the plant specimens used rather large size, thick and moist, can be heated with less than 5 minutes until completely dry. But if the specimens are small, and has lots of petals (for specimens of interest), can be dried within 2-3 minutes. In this activity, it takes some time experimenting to get the best drying time period for each type of specimen plants.

After the heating process is complete, the container containing the specimen removed from the microwave and aged 20 to 30 minutes. The best results can be obtained by silencing of plant specimens trapped in silica gel for 2 up to 6 hours compared it out too fast.

Specimen plants are carefully removed, and crystalline silica gel that remains in the specimen is cleaned using a soft brush. For best results that can be done by spraying using a spray acrylic (acrylic spray) or hairspray on each specimen. This serves to seal and protect the specimens used. After silica gel crystals have been really cold, it can be reused.

The dried plant specimens can be used as a key determination in the process of classification of living things (especially the classification of plants) using a natural system.

Drying plant specimens mounted aiming to get dry, so as to facilitate the identification of these specimens. one drying can be done is to use a microwave oven. Microwave is one of an electromagnetic wave in the electromagnetic wave spectrum. The length of the microwave about 30 centimeters to 1 mm, yielding a frequency of 1 GHz for wavelengths of 30 centimeters to 30 GHz for a wavelength of 1 mm. Own micro term that means small is relative to other types of radio waves, electromagnetic waves are still a lot of much smaller wavelength than microwaves. Basically the main function is the same microwave oven with a stove that is raising the temperature of food. Because food will be cooked at high temperatures the microwave can be used to cook food, thaw frozen foods from the freezer or just warm up cold food.

Each brings a number of electromagnetic wave energy that can be processed for human purposes. The length of each type of electromagnetic waves of different wave will affect the behavior when reacted with various types of materials. Electromagnetic wave energy transfer radiation is done, ie the displacement that does not require an intermediary medium. The energy emitted by the sun can pass through the vacuum of space and reached the earth. Examples of electromagnetic waves is sunlight in the form of ultraviolet light (UV) which enter into the earth each day in amounts beyond measure. UV light as it passes through the space does not raise the temperature in the vacuum of space, but on this earth rays raise the temperature of the various types of objects they encounter. An understanding of the characteristic properties of UV can be used to utilize UV rays and avoid the adverse effects of UV rays, such as the risk of skin cancer.

Within each there is a microwave magnetron. Magnetron is a type of vacuum tube producing microwaves. Function is to emit microwave magnetron in the microwave. Was originally designed to use radar magnetron. Yes, it is correct to use the same microwave used to wave in the world of telecommunications such as radar, radio wave transmitter station, television station transmitter waves, or wave of mobile phone signals. Micro wave itself is one of the radio waves.