Sudan Black B

Sudan Black B (SBB) is a synthetic fat-soluble diazo dye used as a histochemical stain. It can be used for staining neutral lipids, phospholipids and triglycerides across biological and material samples. It is widely used in histology and hematology, it excels at visualizing lipid-rich structures, such as lipid droplets in frozen tissue sections, intracellular lipids in paraffin-embedded samples, granulocytic cells (e.g. myeloblasts, eosinophils), chromosomes, and Golgi apparatus. Sudan Black B has the appearance of a dark brown to black powder with maximum absorption at 596-605 nm and it stains blue-black. Sudan Black B stains phospholipids gray and neutral fats blue-black. Notably non-fluorescent and thermally stable, Sudan Black B serves in procedures like autofluorescence quenching (e.g. at 0.1% in 70% ethanol) to improve imaging clarity. It has also application in forensic fingerprinting or textile coloring.