Wide Sampling Entrance for Disposable Glucose Sensor
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing glucose test sensors have small fluid chambers and sampling entrances, leading to difficulties in filling, incomplete blood collection, and inaccurate readings, especially for users with poor vision or tremors, which can result in incorrect insulin dosages and life-threatening errors.
Innovation Solution
A disposable electrochemical test sensor with an extra wide sampling entrance that serves as both the sampling opening and air escape vent, allowing blood to enter through any part of the opening and alleviating issues of incomplete filling and smearing, using multiple layers with conductive coatings and a hydrophilic surface to facilitate capillary action.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If the fluid chamber volume is reduced to minimize blood sample volume and reduce pain, then the sampling entrance becomes too small for users with poor vision or tremors to target accurately, leading to incomplete filling and biased readings
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the sampling entrance and air escape vent into a single integrated opening at the front end of the sensor. This unified opening serves dual functions: allowing blood sample entry and providing air escape pathways. By combining these functions, the sensor achieves a larger effective opening area that is easier for users to target while maintaining minimal blood volume requirements through efficient capillary-driven flow.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extends the sampling opening beyond a simple front face to include side openings formed by the spacer structure. This creates a three-dimensional sampling zone that wraps around the front end of the sensor, dramatically increasing the target area for blood application while maintaining a compact overall sensor design. Users can apply blood to any surface of the opening, providing multiple targeting opportunities.
2Quantity of substance
If the sampling entrance is made small to reduce blood volume, then it becomes difficult to draw smeared blood samples into the chamber, resulting in incomplete filling and inaccurate measurements
Solution Approach 1:
The integration of multiple opening surfaces (front face and side surfaces) into a unified sampling entrance creates an extended sampling zone. This allows smeared blood samples to be drawn in from multiple locations, increasing the probability of successful sample uptake and ensuring complete chamber filling even when blood is dispersed across the finger surface.
Solution Approach 2:
The sensor design relies on passive capillary action within the fluid chamber and sampling channel to draw blood into the chamber without requiring active user manipulation. The hydrophilic coating on internal surfaces enhances this self-drawing effect, allowing the sensor to automatically collect and fill the chamber with blood samples that are applied to any part of the opening, including smeared samples.
3Reliability
If a separate air escape vent is added to ensure complete filling, then the device complexity increases and overflow issues may occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent eliminates the need for a separate air escape vent by integrating air escape functionality into the sampling entrance itself. The side openings and front face opening provide multiple pathways for air to escape as blood fills the chamber, eliminating the need for additional vent structures and simplifying the overall sensor design while ensuring complete filling.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified opening at the front end of the sensor serves multiple functions simultaneously: it acts as the sampling entrance for blood application, provides air escape pathways during filling, and maintains structural simplicity. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate dedicated air escape vents while ensuring reliable chamber filling.
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 design enhances user friendliness, improves sample collection, reduces biased readings, and prevents overflow, making it easier to target and collect small volume samples, even for users with tremors or poor vision, thereby ensuring accurate analyte concentration measurements.
Implementation Method 1
The chamber provides a reservoir from which sample fluid can be drawn into the sample receiving chamber through capillary action
Implementation Method 2
an upper layer with a hydrophilic surface facing to the chamber
Data Source
AI summary
A disposable electrochemical test sensor designed to facilitate sampling of fluid samples. It has a fluid chamber having a novel extra wide sampling entrance, but no additional air escape vent. The chamber provides a reservoir from which a sample fluid can be drawn into the chamber through capillary action. The extra wide sampling entrance provided by the present invention can draw blood into the chamber through any part of the opening, thus it allows easy targeting the samples with small volume, picking up smeared samples and it is more tolerant to users who jam the tip of the sensor into users' finger.