Method of dispensing analytic reference material

Abstract

A method of dispensing an analytic reference material includes providing a dispensing device including an ampoule having at least two storage lumens extending axially along the length of an ampoule body, an analytic reference material subunit in each of the storage lumens, distal gaskets sealing the analytic reference material subunits from a distal end of the ampoule, and an outlet lumen. The method also includes providing a plunger assembly coupled to a proximal end of the ampoule, the plunger assembly in communication with the storage lumens and depressing the plunger assembly to force the distal gaskets into gasket seats in the dispensing device and expelling the analytic reference material subunits from the storage lumens via the outlet lumen to form the analytic reference material.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 652,045, filed May 25, 2012, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 652,714, filed May 29, 2012.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention is directed to methods and devices for dispensing liquids. More particularly, the present invention is directed to methods and devices for dispensing multiple liquids separately stored within a single container.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Analytic reference materials are used as standards in chemical analysis for determining the presence and / or quantity of a particular substance or analyte. Often, the analytic reference materials are contained in glass ampoules that are hermetically sealed. The ampoules must be broken in order to access the analytic reference materials, which are then usually withdrawn with a pipette or syringe rather than being poured. The use of ampoules can suffer from various drawbacks, including...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]The dispensing devices described herein include an ampoule having a plurality of lumens that act as isolated containers for analytic reference material subunits, to ensure chemically incompatible compounds composing an analytic reference material standard solution are not stored together. Exemplary embodiments are also capable of equivalently delivering the analytic reference material subunits as a single mixture at or just prior to the point of use.

Problems solved by technology

The use of ampoules can suffer from various drawbacks, including that ampoules can be difficult to open, can result in and / or contaminate a sample with shattered glass, and can be time consuming to empty, among others.

Placing chemically incompatible compounds in the same ampoule causes denaturing and degradation of those compounds.

The denatured compounds change an analytic reference materials' chemical composition, leading to inaccurate chemical analysis.

This problem is compounded by increasingly complex analytical methods that require an increasing number of components to make up the analytic reference material, resulting in so called “mega” mixes that contain a large number of individual ampoules in an analysis kit.

These kits suffer from various drawbacks, including the large number of ampoules which must be combined to form a standard solution.

The ampoules are time consuming to combine, and are prone to end user error during combination.

User error, along with chemical degradation, can lead to undesirable chromatographic peaks or other errors in the data collected from various analytical techniques.

However, those devices are difficult to handle, are difficult to depress simultaneously, present size constraints, and cannot easily incorporate more than two syringes.

These devices suffer from their own attendant drawbacks, including that they are not capable of releasing multiple liquids at the same time and are limited by the length of the syringe.

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