Once paraformaldehyde is depolymerized, the resulting formaldehyde may be used as a fumigant, disinfectant, fungicide, and fixative. Longer chain-length (high molecular weight) polyoxymethylenes are used as a thermoplastic and are known as polyoxymethylene plastic (POM, Delrin).

Application

Paraformaldehyde PFA has been widely used as a cross-linking fixation agent. It has been empirically recognized in a gold standard protocol that the PFA concentration for cell fixation, C PFA, is 4 percent