Removable Bonding Strip for Cuvette Handling Package

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current cuvette packaging methods are costly, generate excessive plastic waste, and fail to ensure cuvettes remain dust-free and scratch-free during handling and transport, leading to potential contamination and incorrect measurement results.

Innovation Solution

A cuvette handling package using a removable bonding strip that extends over the top surface of the cuvettes, binding them together during transport and easily removable for loading, minimizing packaging material and preventing dust and impurities from entering the reaction vessels.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If a box package is used to protect cuvettes during transport, then cuvettes are protected from damage, but packaging costs increase and plastic waste is generated

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprotection of cuvettesVSAvoidpackaging material waste
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The protective function is extracted from the traditional box package and transferred to the bonding strip that binds cuvettes together. The bonding strip serves as both the binding element and the protective cover, eliminating the need for separate box packaging while maintaining cuvette protection during transport and storage.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The bonding strip is designed to be easily removable and disposable. After use, the bonding strip can be discarded without requiring complex recycling processes, reducing packaging waste management complexity while still providing necessary protection during the critical handling period.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #34Discarding and recovering

2Ease of manufacture

If a thin material is used for the package box to reduce costs, then packaging costs decrease, but the box becomes easily bent and twisted making handling difficult

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepackaging costVSAvoidhandling capability
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of manufactureVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The structural support function is extracted from the box and transferred to the bonding strip and cuvette arrangement system. The bonding strip provides sufficient structural integrity for handling without requiring a rigid box, allowing the use of lighter, more cost-effective packaging materials.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

3Ease of operation

If cuvettes are handled manually during loading, then loading flexibility is improved, but fingerprints and scratches occur on cuvettes

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveloading flexibilityVSAvoidcontamination and damage
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The bonding strip serves as an intermediary that enables automated or remote handling of cuvettes. By providing a common handling interface, the bonding strip allows cuvettes to be manipulated as a group without direct contact with individual cuvette surfaces, preventing fingerprints and scratches while maintaining loading flexibility.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

4Object-affected harmful factors

If cuvettes are bound tightly during transport, then dust protection is improved, but removal difficulty increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedust protectionVSAvoidremoval ease
Core Design Contradiction:
Object-affected harmful factorsVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The bonding strip incorporates dynamic characteristics with varying bond strengths at different locations and orientations. The bonding is strong enough to protect cuvettes during transport but designed to break easily in specific directions during loading, enabling dust protection during transport while maintaining ease of removal during operation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Data Source

PatentEP2539718B1Handling package of cuvettes
Publication Date: 2018.04.18 THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC OY
  • EP2539718B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP2539718B1 patent drawingFigure 2

AI summary

Automatic analyzers, in which the liquids to be analyzed are in so-called reaction vessels, simultaneously acting as optical high-quality cuvettes (10), are used in laboratories for analyzing various liquid This publication discloses a handling package for cuvettes. According to the invention a removable bonding strip (100) is fastened on the row of cuvettes, the strip binding the row of cuvettes during transport and being easily removable when the cuvettes are loaded into the instrument. The cuvettes (5) are loaded into the instrument by supporting the package in its place from the brackets located in the ends of the cuvettes so that the strip (100) can be pulled off the supported package of cuvettes.