System, apparatus and method for material preparation and/or handling

Abstract

Oscillating angularly rotating a container containing a material may cause the material to be separate. Denser or heavier material may unexpectedly tend to collected relatively close to the axis of rotation, while less dense or light material may tend to collect relatively away from the axis of rotation. Oscillation along an arcuate path provides high lysing efficiency. Alternatively, a micromotor may drive an impeller removably received in a container. Lysing may be implemented in batch mode, flow-through stop or semi-batch mode, or flow-through continuous mode. Lysing particulate material may exceed material to be lysed or lysed material and / or air may be essentially eliminated from a chamber to increase lysing efficiency.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present disclosure relates to the separation of matter, for example particles or other material in a suspension. The present disclosure also relates to lysing and in particular to systems, apparatus and methods to perform lysing of a material to be lysed using a lysing particulate material.BACKGROUND[0002]There are numerous applications that require the separation of material, for example particulate or other matter in suspension. One common approach is to employ a centrifuge to separate relatively heavier material from relatively light material. Centrifuges typical include a container to hold the material, a drive system including a motor and transmission or linkage coupled to rotate the container about a fixed axis of rotation. The material in the container separates based on density under centripetal acceleration, with denser or heavier material tending to collect at a perimeter relatively away from the axis of rotation and with the less dense or lighter ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]There is a need for other approaches to separating materials. Such approaches may provide quicker separation, more thorough separation, or may separate materials in a different manner than previous approaches.

[0009]There is also a need for bead-based lysing apparatus and methods that are more efficient than current lysing apparatus. Such may reduce the amount of time required to process a sample (i.e., material to be lysed) and / or increase throughput. Such may also increase the level or thoroughness of lysing, producing greater amounts of lysed material from a given sample size. There is also a need for lysing apparatus and methods that operate on sample sizes that are relatively small (e.g., 10 micro-liters) compared to conventional lysing apparatus. Such may enable lysing to be performed where a relatively small amount of a sample is available and / or reduce costs. Such may also reduce the amount of lysing particulate material that is required, also providing cost reductions. Such may also allow higher frequency oscillation, thereby increasing efficiency, while maintaining reasonable lifetime or fatigue characteristics. There is also a need to efficiently and reliably lyse typically difficult to lyse material, for example spores. There is a further need for the ability to perform flow-through lysing. Such may allow large quantities of small samples to be processed over time, for example processing small samples taken every minute over a long period of time (e.g., day, week, month, and / or years). There is also a need for lysing equipment that is small and hence portable, and that is relatively inexpensive yet sufficiently robust to withstand travel or harsh operating environments.

[0027]The chamber may have a third opening, at least a portion of the micromotor may be received by the third opening and may seal the third opening. The micromotor may be removably received in the first third opening. The micromotor may be disposable.

Problems solved by technology

These chemical approaches may adversely affect the resulting product, for example degrading the bio-products being released.

Consequently, chemical approaches may, in some instances, not be practical.

Such an approach may not achieve as high a lysis efficiency as may be required or desired for many applications.

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