Rotating Solvent Bottle Cap With Tube ID Flags
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Solution Overview
Problem
Chromatography systems face challenges in identifying and managing solvent tubes due to similar tube diameters and flexible materials, leading to difficulty in determining the correct solvent bottle connections.
Innovation Solution
A bottle cap system with a lower and upper cap body, a liner, and identification flags that allow independent rotation, enabling secure attachment to solvent containers without disconnecting tubes, and featuring color-coded or shape-coded flags for easy identification.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If tubes are made with similar diameters and flexible materials, then device complexity is reduced, but tube identification becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies color-coding to identification flags attached to tube caps. Each flag is color-coded to correspond to a specific solvent bottle or tube, enabling visual differentiation of otherwise identical flexible tubes. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining simple, uniform tubing while adding color-coded identification markers that make tube identification easy and unambiguous.
2Ease of operation
If tubes are made flexible, then ease of operation is improved, but tube organization and identification become difficult
Solution Approach 1:
Color-coded identification flags are attached to the caps of solvent bottles and tubes. The color coding system provides visual organization that complements the flexibility of the tubing, allowing operators to easily identify and organize tubes without restricting their flexible nature. This maintains ease of operation while adding organizational capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The identification flag acts as an intermediary element between the flexible tube and the operator. It provides visual information about tube identity and routing without interfering with the tube's flexibility or the flow of solvent. The flag mediates the interaction between the operator and the flexible tubing system, enabling easy identification and organization.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple solvent bottles with tubes are used, then functionality is improved, but identification and management of connections becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
Each solvent bottle and its corresponding tube are assigned a unique color-coded identification flag. This color-coding system preserves connection identification information visually, allowing operators to quickly match tubes to their correct solvent bottles even when multiple bottles are in use. This maintains full system functionality while preventing loss of connection information.
Solution Approach 2:
Identification flags are attached to solvent bottle caps and tube caps in advance, before the tubes are connected to the chromatography system. This preliminary identification setup ensures that connection information is established and visible before the complexity of multiple connections arises, making subsequent identification and management straightforward.
Data Source
AI summary
A bottle cap includes a lower cap body that is threaded for attachment about an opening in a solvent bottle and an upper cap body attached to the lower cap body. A liner disposed inside the lower cap body includes at least one opening to pass a solvent tube while limiting evaporation of the solvent in the bottle. Features in the upper cap body permit identification flags to be attached. Each flag has an opening to pass a corresponding tube and includes one or more characters or symbols, color-coding and/or shape-coding to identify the corresponding solvent and/or a system inlet to which the tube is connected at its other end. The upper and lower cap bodies are independently rotatable about a cap axis and allow the bottle cap to be removed from or attached to the bottle without the need to remove any tubes passing through the bottle cap.