We describe here a protocol for cleaning diatoms when time is short and the amount of sample is very limited. Essentially, the method consists of drying material onto coverslips and cleaning it directly in situ using nitric acid (or hydrogen peroxide), which is evaporated to dryness. After washing twice or a few times with deionized water, the coverslips are ready for mounting in resin for light microscopy as usual, or attachment to stubs for scanning electron microscopy. Besides speed, the method has the advantage that it often preserves some frustules intact or leaves their different elements (and stages of valve formation) closely associated with each other. Examples where the method is especially advantageous are to clean small aliquots of cultures for identification or to act as vouchers, or to explore diversity of the most abundant species in natural material (e.g., periphyton). It is less suitable for counts in ecological or palaeoecological studies. We tabulate the many other cleaning methods to provide context for the new method described here.

中文翻译：

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一种快速清洗硅藻的方法

我们在这里描述了一种在时间很短且样品量非常有限时清洁硅藻的协议。本质上，该方法包括将材料干燥到盖玻片上，并使用硝酸（或过氧化氢）直接原位清洁，蒸发至干。用去离子水清洗两次或几次后，盖玻片就可以像往常一样安装在树脂中进行光学显微镜检查，或者连接到存根以进行扫描电子显微镜检查。除了速度之外，该方法的优势在于它通常可以完整地保留一些硅藻壳或使它们的不同元素（和阀门形成的阶段）彼此密切相关。该方法特别有利的示例是清洁小等分培养物以进行识别或充当凭证，或探索天然物质中最丰富的物种（如附生生物）的多样性。它不太适合生态或古生态研究中的计数。我们列出了许多其他清洁方法，以为此处描述的新方法提供背景信息。