Automated Analyzer With Mass-Spectrometric Dispensing Checks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing automatic analysis devices face significant challenges in accurately dispensing small amounts of specimens or reagents, leading to potential errors in analysis results due to inaccuracies in dispensing amounts, which can result in false low values and decreased analysis accuracy.
Innovation Solution
An automatic analysis device equipped with a control unit, specimen and reagent dispensing mechanisms, and a mass spectrometry system that includes a standard substance for dispensing inspection, allowing for real-time detection of dispensing abnormalities by comparing mass chromatograms to determine if the dispensing amount deviates from a predetermined threshold, thereby ensuring accurate analysis.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If a small amount of specimen or reagent is dispensed into the reaction vessel, then the analysis can be performed with minimal sample consumption, but the dispensing accuracy becomes critical and small deviations can cause false low values and decrease analysis accuracy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a feedback mechanism by adding a standard substance for dispensing inspection to the reagent, allowing real-time monitoring of dispensing accuracy through mass spectrometry. The control unit compares the detected amount of the standard substance against a predetermined threshold to determine whether dispensing is abnormal, enabling automatic correction or alerting to maintain measurement precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a standard substance for dispensing inspection as an intermediary indicator to indirectly monitor the dispensing accuracy of the reagent. Instead of directly measuring the reagent dispensing amount, the system measures the standard substance (which has known concentration) that co-dispensed with the reagent, using it as a proxy to detect dispensing abnormalities.
2Measurement precision
If additional detection mechanisms are added to monitor dispensing accuracy, then analysis accuracy can be maintained, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the mass spectrometry system multi-functional by using it for both the primary analysis of the specimen and the secondary monitoring of dispensing accuracy through the standard substance. This eliminates the need for separate dedicated monitoring hardware, as the existing MS system performs dual purposes: component analysis and dispensing inspection.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-monitoring by incorporating the standard substance for dispensing inspection into the reagent dispensing process itself. The system automatically detects and evaluates its own dispensing accuracy through the mass spectrometry measurement of the standard substance, without requiring external monitoring equipment or manual verification.
3Productivity
If the dispensing amount of reagent is reduced to minimize sample consumption, then cost and time are reduced, but the influence of dispensing error on analysis results increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by adding the standard substance for dispensing inspection to the reagent before dispensing. This allows the system to preemptively detect potential dispensing errors before they affect the analysis results, enabling corrective measures to be taken that maintain reliability even at reduced dispensing amounts.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enables reliable detection of dispensing abnormalities, preventing decreases in analysis accuracy and maintaining throughput without the need for additional hardware like pressure sensors, thus ensuring valid analysis results and efficient operation.
Implementation Method 1
a mass analyzing unit for detecting and analyzing a specific component in a reaction solution
Implementation Method 2
by comparing mass chromatograms to determine if the dispensing amount deviates from a predetermined threshold
Data Source
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AI summary
Provided is an automatic analysis device and an analysis method which are capable of reliably detecting an abnormality in a dispensing amount of a solution such as a specimen or a reagent to be dispensed and suppressing a decrease in analysis accuracy. Included are a specimen dispensing mechanism 113 that dispenses an analysis target specimen in a reaction vessel 116, a reagent dispensing mechanism 123 that dispenses another dispensing object different from the specimen in the reaction vessel 116, and a mass analyzing unit 133 that detects and analyzes a specific component in a reaction solution in which a specimen dispensed into the reaction vessel 116 and another dispensing object are mixed to each other, in which it is determined whether a dispensed liquid amount of the another dispensing object is abnormal or not, based on a detection result of a standard substance for dispensing inspection which has been added in advance to the another dispensing object, which is detected at the same time with the detection of the analysis target component of the specimen in the reaction solution in the mass analyzing unit 133.