Absorbance measuring device and method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10976253-B2
Application number	US-201616060556-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 14, 2016
Priority date	Dec 15, 2015
Publication date	Apr 13, 2021
Grant date	Apr 13, 2021

Abstract

A highly-reliable absorbance measuring device that enables highly-accurate measurement of absorbance, and a method thereof are provided.
A liquid containing unit that can contain a chemical substance solution to be measured, a nozzle that communicates with a suction/discharge mechanism that sucks/discharges gas, a flow tube that includes a mouth part, which can be inserted into the liquid containing unit, at a lower end and that is detachably attached to the nozzle at an upper end, an emitting end that can emit measurement light, a light receiving end that can receive the light emitted from the emitting end, and a control unit are included. The control unit is configured to suck a prescribed amount of the chemical substance solution into the flow tube, and to lead absorbance on the basis of intensity of transmitted light acquired by emission of measurement light in a vertical direction into the flow tube.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An absorbance measuring device comprising:
one or more liquid containing units, each of the liquid containing units holding one or more chemical substance solutions to be measured;
a suction and discharge mechanism having one or more cylinders;
one or more nozzles that communicate with the one or more cylinders of the suction and discharge mechanism;
one or more flow tubes, each flow tube extending from a lower end to an upper end and comprising a mouth part at the lower end configured to be inserted into each of the liquid containing units, and an opening part at the upper end configured to detachably receive a nozzle;
one or more optical emitting fibers, each optical emitting fiber having a rear portion that is optically connected to a light source and a leading portion that terminates at an emitting end, wherein the emitting end is coupled to a plunger that slides within the one or more cylinders of the suction and discharge mechanism and wherein the emitting end is configured to emit measurement light from the light source;
one or more optical receiving fibers, each optical receiving fiber optically connected to a photoelectric conversion unit and configured to receive measurement light from the emitting end at a light receiving end; and
a control unit operably coupled to the suction and discharge mechanism, the light source, and the photoelectric conversion unit, the control unit configured to:
transmit a signal to the suction and discharge mechanism to suck one or more prescribed amounts of the one or more chemical substance solutions into the one or more flow tubes;
transmit a signal to the light source to emit the measurement light from the emitting ends in a vertical direction through the one or more flow tubes; and
determine one or more absorbance values of the one or more chemical substance solutions based on one or more intensity data signals received from the photoelectric conversion unit, the one or more intensity data signals based on one or more intensities of the measurement light received at the light receiving ends.

2. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 1 , wherein the liquid containing units and the optical emitting fibers are provided in a stage, and wherein the absorbance measuring device further comprises:
a nozzle moving mechanism that is configured to move the nozzles with respect to the stage, and
wherein the control unit is further configured to transmit a signal to the nozzle moving mechanism to move the nozzles with respect to the stage.

3. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 2 , further comprising an emission switching unit that switches optical connection between the one or more emitting ends and the light source, or a light-reception switching unit that switches optical connection between the one or more light receiving ends and the photoelectric conversion unit.

4. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 1 , further comprising a reaction container in addition to the one or more liquid containing units, wherein at least one of the following is a photometric container having a bottom part comprising a translucent region through which the measurement light is transmitted: 1) the one or more liquid containing units and 2) the reaction container.

5. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 4 , wherein the flow tubes further comprise a flow tube light blocking member configured to prevent ingression of outside light into the chemical substance solution to be measured;
wherein the bottom part of the photometric container includes a base part and a sidewall part connected to the base part and extending upwardly therefrom, the sidewall part comprising a container light blocking member configured to prevent ingression of outside light into the chemical substance solution to be measured, and
wherein a lower end part of the flow tube is configured be inserted from an upper side into the bottom part of the photometric container.

6. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 1 , wherein the one or more chemical substance solutions comprise an internal standard solution of known concentration, and
wherein the measurement light comprises standard measurement light that can be absorbed by the internal standard solution.

7. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 1 , wherein the one or more chemical substance solutions comprise a diluent.

8. An absorbance measuring method comprising:
transmitting, by a control unit, a signal to a suction and discharge mechanism having one or more cylinders to suck one or more prescribed amounts of one or more chemical substance solutions from one or more liquid containing units using one or more nozzles that communicate with the one or more cylinders of the suction and discharge mechanism, wherein the one or more chemical substance solutions are sucked into one or more flow tubes coupled to the one or more nozzles, and wherein each flow tube extends from a lower end to an upper end and comprises a mouth part at the lower end configured to be inserted into each of the liquid containing units, and an opening part at the upper end configured to detachably receive a nozzle;
transmitting, by the control unit, a signal to a light source to emit measurement light from emitting ends of one or more optical emitting fibers in a vertical direction, wherein each optical emitting fiber has a rear portion that is optically connected to the light source and a leading portion that terminates at the emitting end, wherein each emitting end is coupled to a plunger that slides within the one or more cylinders of the suction and discharge mechanism; and
determining, by the control unit, one or more absorbance values of the one or more chemical substance solutions based on one or more intensity data signals received from a photelectric conversion unit, the one or more intensity data signals based on one or more intensities of the measurement light received at light receiving ends of one or more optical receiving fibers, wherein each optical receiving fiber is optically connected to the photoelectric conversion unit.

9. The absorbance measuring method according to claim 8 , wherein the liquid containing units and the optical emitting fibers are provided in a stage, and wherein the absorbance measuring method further comprises:
transmitting, by the control unit, a signal to a nozzle moving mechanism to relatively move the nozzles with respect to the stage.

10. The absorbance measuring method according to claim 8 , wherein the measurement light emitting step includes an optical connection switching step of switching optical connection between the one or more emitting ends and the light source or between the one or more light receiving ends and the photoelectric conversion unit.

11. The absorbance measuring method according to claim 8 , wherein a reaction container is further provided in addition to the one or more liquid containing units; and
wherein at least one of the following is a photometric container having a bottom part comprising a translucent region through which the measurement light is transmitted: 1) the one or more liquid containing units and 2) the reaction container.

12. The absorbance measuring device according to claim 2 , further comprising a reaction container in addition to the one or more liquid containing units, wherein at least one of the following is a photometric container having a bottom part comprising a translucent region through which the measurement light is transmitted: 1) the one or more liquid containing units and 2) the reaction container.

Assignees

• Universal Bio Research Co Ltd

Inventors

• Tajima Hideji
• Sugimoto Takaki
• Ueda Tetsuya

Classifications

• G01N21/11 Primary

  Filling or emptying of cuvettes · CPC title

• G01N2021/825

  Agglutination · CPC title

• G01N21/253

  for batch operation, i.e. multisample apparatus (analytical automats G01N35/00) · CPC title

• G01N21/31

  Investigating relative effect of material at wavelengths characteristic of specific elements or molecules, e.g. atomic absorption spectrometry {(G01N21/72 takes precedence)} · CPC title

• G01N21/82

  producing a precipitate or turbidity · CPC title