Paraformaldehyde (PFA) is the smallest polyoxymethylene, the polymerization product of formaldehyde with a typical degree of polymerization of 8–100 units. Paraformaldehyde commonly has a slight odor of formaldehyde due to decomposition. Paraformaldehyde is a poly-acetal.
Paraformaldehyde is not a fixative; it must be depolymerized to formaldehyde in solution. In cell culture, a typical formaldehyde fixing procedure would involve using a 4% formaldehyde solution in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) .
Paraformaldehyde is also used to crosslink proteins to DNA, as used in ChIP (Chromatin Immuno Precipitation) which is a technique to determine which part of DNA certain proteins are binding to.