Philippine E-Journals

Coconut Oil as an Alternative for Immersion Oil

Dolce Monica U Balba | Karla Anika A Quiobe | Casey Lyn Z Valbuena

 

Abstract:

Immersion oil is the one used for oil immersion microscopy and it is responsible for the definite image viewing of what is present in the slide or sample being observed. There are many types of oil used as immersion oil, and the most common example is the xylene oil and synthetic immersion oil. Researches have been utilizing coconut oil as an effective alternative for commonly used immersion oil. This study aimed to have an image comparison between samples using two different oils - coconut and synthetic oil - in terms of sharpness and contrast of the image. Experimental research design was used in this study. The experiment was done in Lyceum of the Philippines - Laguna. The researchers used eight (8) samples as one of their instruments. The study used t-test to compare the results. After series of experiments, the comparison between the sharpness of coconut oil and synthetic immersion oil has a t-test result of p=0.06 which indicates the characteristics of coconut oil being not significantly different in terms of sharpness. For the contrast of the two oils, with a t-test result of p=0.11, the test reveals that there is no significant difference between coconut oil and immersion oil in terms of their contrast. Based on the results of this study, coconut oil can be used as a potential alternative for immersion oil since the results are comparable in terms of the sharpness and contrast of image. Coconut oil is also more cost effective and can benefit the laboratory.