Table 1. Classic common homogenization methods.

Method	References	Principle	Volume	Cell types	Comments	Equipment cost
Ottawa Sand	[6]; patent by DuPont for sand milling US 2855156 A	Sand milling and grinding	ml	Mammalian tissues	Particulates may carry through; messy	Negligible
Thomas or Potter-Elvehjem	[3]	Shearing by motorized pestle	ml	Mammalian tissues	Slow, one sample at a time; heating	Homogenizers $100-$200; Motor, $thousands
Aminco-French pressure cells	[7]	High shear by passing through a narrow orifice	50+ ml	Even suspensions of dilute bacteria	Complicated, expensive, large volumes, susceptible to clogging and fouling, one sample at a time	$tens of thousands
Stomacher	[8]	Kneading	100+ ml to liters	Detaching bacteria from biofilms, plant matter, pathologic tissue	One large sample at a time, slow	$thousands
Waring blender	[1]	Chopping with high speed rotating blades	30 ml to liters	Mammalian tissues	One sample at a time, large volume, heating	200
Freeze-thawing or freeze-crush, also called cryo-impacting	[9,10]	Pulverization; shattering on freeze planes	< 1 gram per sample	Mammalian tissues	Good for multiple and small samples; slow, tedious; requires much dry ice or LN2; difficult to keep the samples dry; difficult recovery of crushed tissues; risk of spillage; messy	negligible
Bead-beating	[11,12]	Tissues are squashed and pulverized between much more massive and hard beads	< 1 gram per sample	Mammalian tissues	Multiple beads can be damaged in colliding with each other fracturing the beads often glass, zirconium, or silica. Ceramic and stainless steel are more durable. Temperature climbs rapidly with bead beating up to 10 °C per minute	$thousands
Sonication	Weaver, C.E. US patent: US2163650 -1939	Ultrasound generates microcavitation bubbles that explode in tissues dispersing them	< 1 gram per sample	Mammalian tissues	efficient, but slow; one or few samples at a time; cross contamination, oxidation; heating a major problem	$thousands
Double ended syringe needles (micro-emulsifying needles)		High shear by passing through a narrow orifice	< 1 gram per sample	Only suspensions of cells	Sclera will not pass through an 18 gauge needle. Clogging and fouling, slow, difficult, but manual	100
Centrifugation through successively smaller holes	[13]	High shear by passing through a narrow orifice	< 1 gram per sample	Soft tissues (brain, liver); suspensions cultured cells; blood cells.	Prone to clogs	$Negligible
The Willems polytron with a rotor-stator and similar devices	US patents 2789800 A, 2541221 A	Chopping with high speed rotating blades	1-10 grams per sample	Mammalian tissues	Very efficient, difficult to clean	$Thousands
Dissolved Nitrogen gas decompression Aka the Parr Bomb	[14,15].	Dissolved N2 produces gas bubbles on rapid decompression that explode in tissues dispersing them	< 1 gram per sample	Mammalian tissues	Efficient; difficult to clean; Slow	$Thousands
Dounce	[1,2]	High shear by passing between a glass pestle and a glass cylinder	<10 grams	Soft tissues	difficult to clean; Slow; messy; manual	100