Replacing critical point drying with a low-cost chemical drying provides comparable surface image quality of glandular trichomes from leaves of Millingtonia hortensis L. f. in scanning electron micrograph.

Sample preparation including dehydration and drying of samples is the most intricate part of scanning electron microscopy. Most current sample preparation protocols use critical-point drying with liquid carbon dioxide. Very few studies have reported samples that were dried using chemical reagents. In this study, we used hexamethyldisilazane, a chemical drying reagent, to prepare plant samples. As glandular trichomes are among the most fragile and sensitive surface structures found on plants, we used Millingtonia hortensis leaf samples as our study materials because they contain abundant glandular trichomes. The results obtained using this new method are identical to those produced via critical-point drying.