CN211771357U - Full-automatic sample loading system - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model provides a full-automatic system of getting ready, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, nitrogen gas concentration in control system control heating system, refrigerating system, atomizing spraying, carbon dioxide sensor and nitrogen sensor adjust the incubator, make it accord with the cell growth, the culture plate that will place the cell is through placing on the board of placing that the shell of putting at full-automatic system of getting ready imports and exports, the bracket that utilizes in the automatic dull and stereotyped shifter will cultivate the board and place the culture plate support from placing the board and carry out the cell culture in the incubator. After the cell culture is finished, the heating system is used for heating the incubator at high temperature to sterilize. The utility model discloses it is high to have degree of automation, safe and reliable, chemical agent when still having avoided the disinfection when having practiced thrift a large amount of time constitutes the injury to the human body.

Description

Full-automatic sample loading system

Technical Field

The utility model relates to a biology, health and medical treatment field, in particular to full-automatic system of getting ready.

Background

Controlling and eliminating contamination is an important aspect of cell culture work. The harmful bacterial, viral or spore populations can easily disrupt cell-based experiments common in biological and pharmaceutical research, and it is well known that these populations are sometimes difficult to detect and eliminate. Three main decontamination or sterilization methods have been used over the last century: dry heat, moist heat and chemical.

Dry heat sterilization typically involves subjecting potentially contaminated articles to temperatures of 120-160 ℃ for one to two hours at low relative humidity. This sterilization method effectively sterilizes articles having good thermal conductivity, such as metal parts, glassware, and the like.

On the other hand, moist heat sterilization may be performed at a slightly lower temperature than dry heat sterilization within 20 to 30 minutes. However, it also requires steam and a pressure of 15-20 psi. Hospitals are quickly adopting this method because pressurized steam is much faster than dry heat.

A third decontamination method involves spraying or wiping the toxic chemical onto the potentially contaminated surface. This method is typically used to sterilize items that are too large to be placed in a sterilization oven, or contain sensitive electronics or other equipment that cannot undergo a thermal sterilization cycle.

Incubators have been used for many years for cell culture and other laboratory applications. Recently, fully automated sample loading systems for automated laboratory robotic systems have been developed. The object to be cultured is not placed in the incubator by hand, but is transferred to a certain position on the outer surface of the shell by a robot, and the object to be cultured is moved to a vacant storage position in the incubator by an automatic object handling mechanism. Reversing these steps causes the incubator to output a given object and present it to the robot.

Historically, both automated and non-automated (manual) incubators have been sterilized by a variety of methods. Some laboratories may sterilize items that may be removed from the internal chamber of the incubator, such as racks, or stackers, and then sterilize these components with an autoclave (moist heat) or dry heat. The interior surface of the incubator itself may then be wiped with a toxic chemical. Such a process is time consuming and the use of contamination-killing chemicals poses certain risks to personnel and, where possible, is avoided.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The utility model aims at providing a full-automatic system of getting a design has the full-automatic advantage of putting and getting the culture plate, cultivateing the cell and self-sterilizer.

The above technical purpose of the present invention can be achieved by the following technical solutions:

a fully automated sample loading system, located in a housing, comprising the following components:

an incubator for culturing cells placed on the culture plate;

an automatic plate shifter for transporting the culture plate;

a heating system for delivering sufficient hot air into the incubator;

a refrigeration system for delivering sufficient cold air into the incubator;

the atomization nozzle is used for directly atomizing water into the incubator to increase the relative humidity in the incubator;

the control system is used for controlling the full-automatic sample loading system;

the shell is used for placing the incubator, the automatic plate shifter, the heating system, the refrigerating system, the plurality of atomizing nozzles and the control system.

The preferred scheme is as follows:

preferably: a temperature and humidity sensor is arranged in the incubator and is a digital capacitance sensor. Temperature and humidity sensor can detect the inside temperature and humidity of incubator, prevents to exceed the default.

Preferably: and the plurality of atomizing nozzles are controlled by a first electromagnetic valve. The temperature and humidity sensor sends data of the detection incubator to the control system, the control system determines whether to open or close the first electromagnetic valve after comparing the data with a preset value, and then the opening or closing instruction is transmitted to the first electromagnetic valve in an electric signal mode.

Preferably: and a carbon dioxide sensor is arranged in the incubator and is an infrared gas sensor. For detecting the concentration in carbon dioxide in the incubator.

Preferably: the incubator is provided with a carbon dioxide inlet which is communicated with a carbon dioxide storage tank through a carbon dioxide pipeline, and the carbon dioxide pipeline is provided with a second electromagnetic valve. The carbon dioxide storage tank provides carbon dioxide for the incubator through the carbon dioxide entry, can detect carbon dioxide concentration through the carbon dioxide sensor, sends the data that detect for control system after, and control system judges whether the second solenoid valve will open or close.

Preferably: and a nitrogen sensor is arranged in the incubator and is a micro fuel cell sensor. Used to detect the nitrogen concentration in the incubator.

Preferably: be equipped with the nitrogen gas entry in the incubator, the nitrogen gas entry has nitrogen gas holding vessel through nitrogen gas pipeline intercommunication, be equipped with the third solenoid valve on the nitrogen gas pipeline. The nitrogen storage tank provides nitrogen for the incubator through the nitrogen inlet, can detect nitrogen concentration through the nitrogen sensor, and after sending the data that detect to control system, control system judges whether the third solenoid valve will open or close.

To sum up, the utility model discloses following beneficial effect has:

can detect temperature and humidity in the incubator through temperature and humidity sensor, thereby control, prevent that the temperature from reaching the sterile effect of disinfecting, and in order to promote cell growth, humidity level in the incubator must be up to standard, thereby temperature and humidity sensor can detect the humidity that makes things convenient for control system control incubator, simultaneously, utilize carbon dioxide sensor and nitrogen sensor, can detect carbon dioxide concentration and nitrogen gas concentration in the incubator, control system controls carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas according to the data that detect, the utility model discloses accomplish full automation, practiced thrift a large amount of time, simultaneously, use heating system to carry out heating and disinfection to the incubator in, the injury to human constitution when having avoided using the sterile chemical agent that disinfects.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a side view of a fully automated loading system of an embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a side cross-sectional view of the fully automated loading system with the outer door removed;

FIG. 3 is a partial top perspective view of a fully automated loading system of an embodiment.

In the figure, 1, a housing; 2. an automatic plate mover; 111. an incubator; 112. culturing the plate; 113. a heating system; 114. a refrigeration system; 115. an atomizing nozzle; 116. a temperature sensor; 117. a humidity sensor; 118. a first solenoid valve; 119. a carbon dioxide sensor; 120. a carbon dioxide storage tank; 121. a second solenoid valve; 122. a nitrogen sensor; 123. a nitrogen storage tank; 124. a third electromagnetic valve; 125. an automatic inner door; 126. placing the plate; 127. a water tank; 211. an upper top plate; 212. a lower base plate; 213. a first motor; 214. a second motor; 215. a bracket; 216. a threaded rod; 217. positioning a rod; 218. a first cylinder; 219. pushing the plate; 220. a connecting plate; 221. a fork lever; 222. a second cylinder.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In which like parts are designated by like reference numerals. It should be noted that the terms "front," "back," "left," "right," "upper" and "lower" used in the following description refer to directions in the drawings, and the terms "bottom" and "top," "inner" and "outer" refer to directions toward and away from, respectively, the geometric center of a particular component.

According to fig. 1-3, a fully automatic sample loading system is achieved by placing the automatic plate mover 2 inside the housing 1 of the fully automatic system, outside the incubator 111, so as to prevent damage to the automatic plate mover 2 caused by the high heat of the sterilization cycle.

The upper end of the shell 1 is provided with a supporting plate 215, the supporting plate 215 is provided with a heating system 113, a refrigerating system 114, a water tank 127 communicated with a plurality of atomizing nozzles 115, a carbon dioxide storage tank 119 and a nitrogen storage tank 123, the heating system 113, the refrigerating system 114, the carbon dioxide storage tank 120 and the nitrogen storage tank 123 are all communicated with the incubator 111, a first electromagnetic valve 118 is arranged at the joint of the water tank 127 and the atomizing nozzles 115, and a second electromagnetic valve 121 and a third electromagnetic valve 124 are respectively arranged at the communication positions of the carbon dioxide storage tank 120 and the nitrogen storage tank 123 and the incubator 111.

Be equipped with automatic dull and stereotyped shifter 2 in the shell 1, be located the inside intermediate position of shell 1, automatic dull and stereotyped shifter 2 includes upper plate 211 and lower plate 212, the top intermediate position of layer board 215 is equipped with first motor 213, the pivot of first motor 213 passes layer board 215 and is connected with the transmission of upper plate 211, shell 1 bottom intermediate position is equipped with the pivot, the center of lower plate 212 is located the pivot, be equipped with four locating levers 217 between upper plate 211 and the lower plate 212, four locating levers 217 are arranged into square shape, still be equipped with a threaded rod 216 between upper plate 211 and lower plate 212, this threaded rod 216 is located the border position of upper plate 211 and lower plate 212, and the fixed second motor 214 that is equipped with in upper plate 211 bottom, the pivot and the threaded rod 216 top fixed connection of second motor 214. A bracket 215 is further arranged between the upper bottom plate 211 and the lower bottom plate 212, the bracket 215 is sleeved on the positioning rod 217, a threaded hole corresponding to the threaded rod 216 is formed in the bracket 215, the second motor 214 is driven, the threaded rod 216 can drive the bracket 215 to move up and down, and the first motor 213 is driven to drive the automatic flat plate mover 2 to rotate along the rotating shaft. Be equipped with first cylinder 218 on bracket 215, the telescopic link top of first cylinder 218 is equipped with fork arm 221, set up the fork groove with the fork arm 221 one-to-one on placing the board 126 of shell 1 exit, the junction on the telescopic link top of fork arm 221 and first cylinder 218 is equipped with connecting plate 220, be equipped with second cylinder 222 on connecting plate 220, the top of the telescopic link of second cylinder 222 is connected with push pedal 219, the bottom of push pedal 219 is equipped with the slider, be equipped with the spout with the slider one-to-one on the fork arm, the slider is located the spout, when preventing that second cylinder 222 from promoting, push pedal 219 produces the displacement, lead to the culture plate 112 can not get into incubator 111 smoothly.

The cells to be cultured are placed on the culture plate 112, the culture plate 112 is placed on the placement plate 126 at the entrance and exit of the housing 1, and the control system located within the housing 1 instructs the automated plate mover 2 to place the culture plate 112 into the incubator 111. Since the positions of the cultivation box 111 and the placing plate 126 are fixed, the angle of rotation of the first motor 213 is fixed.

The first motor 213 is driven, the automatic plate mover 2 rotates for a fixed angle, the position of the fork rod 221 corresponds to the position of the inlet and outlet, the first cylinder 218 is driven, the fork rod 221 is driven to be below the culture plate 112, the second motor 214 is driven to lift the culture plate 112 upwards to leave the inlet and outlet, at the moment, the telescopic rod of the first cylinder 218 is recovered, and the culture plate 112 is positioned inside the shell 1. The incubator 111 is provided with an automatic inner door 125. The first motor 213 is driven, and the carriage 215 is positioned opposite to the incubator 111. The automatic inner door 125 corresponding to the bracket 215 is opened to expose a plurality of layers of the placing layer in the incubator 111, and the placing layer is provided with a yielding groove corresponding to the fork rod 221, so that the fork rod 221 can be conveniently inserted.

The second motor 214 is driven, the carriage 215 aligns the plate 112 with an unoccupied placement layer in the incubator 111, then the first cylinder 218 pushes the fork 221 inside the incubator 111, and then the second cylinder 222 pushes the plate 112 to translate into a target position. When the fork 221 is withdrawn from the incubator 111, the automatic inner door 125 is closed. Because the dimensions between each set of layers in incubator 111 are fixed, and the control system keeps track of each time an incubation plate 112 is placed in incubator 111, carriage 215 can accurately place an incubation plate 112 in an unoccupied set of layers.

When the plate 112 is finished with the cell culture, the control system will instruct the carrier 215 to retrieve the plate 112 and place it on the placement plate 126 of the access opening of the housing 1, remove the plate 112 and move it to the next process step.

The system operator will need to periodically sterilize the incubator 111. At this point, all plates 112 will be removed from incubator 111 and the fully automated loading system will be set to a sterilization cycle. During the sterilization cycle, the internal temperature of the incubator 111 will be raised to about 130-. During this time, the heating system located within the enclosure will cause hot air to enter the incubator 111.

In order to regulate the temperature inside the incubator 111 during both incubation and sterilization, a temperature sensor 116 is located inside the incubator 111 to obtain the internal temperature data, which is sent to a control system located inside the enclosure 1, which regulates the incubator 111 to the appropriate temperature by using a heating system 113 and a refrigeration system 114 located inside the enclosure. Also mounted within the housing 1 is a high temperature fail-safe control to ensure that if the control system fails, the incubator 111 does not overheat to exceed the rated maximum temperature.

To promote cell growth, the incubator 111 controls the humidity level inside. A common technique for achieving high humidity in an incubator is to place an open water pan at the bottom of the incubator, however, this can be a source of contamination. In order to minimize contamination of cells, a humidity sensor 116 is provided inside the incubator 111 of the fully automatic loading system, and the humidity sensor 116 is a digital capacitance sensor which measures a relative humidity value and transmits the value to the control system. When the relative humidity is different from the preset value, the control system adjusts the relative humidity inside the incubator 111. The control system may increase or decrease the relative humidity by adjusting the atomizing nozzles 115.

The atomizing nozzle 115 is controlled by a first solenoid valve 118. The atomizing nozzle 115 atomizes water directly into the incubator 111. The incubator 111 may be operated at a pressure of between about 80-100 pounds per square inch, deionized water or single distilled water may be used, and the resistance of the water may be between about 0.5-2.0M Ω (mega ohms).

The temperature operating range of the humidity sensor 117 is approximately-40 deg.C-150 deg.C, however, the humidity sensor 117 may be subjected to temperatures of approximately-75 deg.C-200 deg.C. In addition, the humidity sensor 117 may measure humidity values between approximately 0-99% Relative Humidity (RH).

In addition to humidity, the automatic feeding system also controls the concentration of carbon dioxide and nitrogen within the incubator 111.

In order to adjust the concentration level of carbon dioxide in the incubator 111, a carbon dioxide sensor 119 is provided in the incubator 111, and the carbon dioxide sensor 119 is an infrared gas sensor. The infrared gas sensor uses the characteristics of the carbon dioxide to determine the concentration of carbon dioxide in the incubator 111. The infrared gas sensor may include a single beam dual wavelength based emitter. By increasing (decreasing) the carbon dioxide entering the incubator 111, a desired or preset carbon dioxide concentration level can be maintained. The second solenoid valve 121 is located inside the housing 1, and the control system opens or closes the second solenoid valve 121 to control the increase or decrease of carbon dioxide from the carbon dioxide storage tank 120 to the incubator 111. The pressure of the gaseous carbon dioxide within the incubator 111 can be between about 100 and 300 psi.

In order to adjust the nitrogen concentration level in the internal incubator 111, a nitrogen sensor 22 is provided in the incubator 111, and a nitrogen sensor 122 is a micro fuel cell sensor for measuring the nitrogen concentration (between 0-100%). The micro fuel cell sensor has an operating temperature range of about 0 deg.C to 50 deg.C and can be calibrated with air. The micro fuel cell sensor delivers the nitrogen level measured in the incubator 111 to the control system. A third solenoid valve 124 is located within the enclosure 1 and the control system opens or closes the third solenoid valve 124 to control the addition or subtraction of nitrogen from the nitrogen storage tank 123 to the incubator 111. The pressure of the nitrogen within the incubator 111 is about 100 psi.

Copper plated incubators are used to help reduce contamination, as copper can rapidly oxidize any surface-borne microorganisms. The interior of the fully automated loading system of this embodiment is mostly stainless steel, but other materials, such as copper, may be provided.

The specific implementation process comprises the following steps:

the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration and nitrogen concentration in the incubator 111 are adjusted to match the growth of cells, and the culture plate 112 on which the cells are placed is placed on the placement plate 126 at the entrance/exit of the housing 1 of the fully automatic sample loading system, and the culture plate 112 is supported by the bracket 215 from the placement plate 126 to the incubator 111, and the cells are cultured. After the cell culture is completed, the incubator 111 is heated at a high temperature by the heating system 113, and sterilized.

The present embodiment is only for explaining the present invention, and it is not limited to the present invention, and those skilled in the art can make modifications to the present embodiment without inventive contribution as required after reading the present specification, but all of them are protected by patent laws within the scope of the claims of the present invention.

Claims (7)

1. A full-automatic sample loading system is characterized by comprising the following components:

an incubator (111) for culturing cells placed on a culture plate (112);

an automated plate mover (2) for transporting the growth plate (112);

a heating system (113) for feeding sufficient hot air into the incubator (111);

a refrigeration system (114) for feeding sufficient cold air into the incubator (111);

the atomization nozzle (115) is arranged in the incubator (111) and is used for directly atomizing water into the incubator (111) and increasing the relative humidity in the incubator (111);

the control system is used for controlling the full-automatic sample loading system;

a housing (1) for holding an incubator (111), an automatic plate mover (2), a heating system (113), a refrigeration system (114), a number of atomizing nozzles (115) and a control system.

2. A fully automatic sample loading system according to claim 1, wherein: a temperature sensor (116) and a humidity sensor (117) are arranged in the incubator (111), and the temperature sensor (116) and the humidity sensor (117) are both digital capacitance sensors.

3. A fully automatic sample loading system according to claim 1, wherein: the plurality of atomizing nozzles (115) are all controlled by a first electromagnetic valve (118).

4. A fully automatic sample loading system according to claim 1, wherein: a carbon dioxide sensor (119) is arranged in the incubator (111), and the carbon dioxide sensor (119) is an infrared gas sensor.

5. The full-automatic sample loading system according to claim 4, wherein: the carbon dioxide incubator is characterized in that a carbon dioxide inlet is formed in the incubator (111), the carbon dioxide inlet is communicated with a carbon dioxide storage tank (120) through a carbon dioxide pipeline, and a second electromagnetic valve (121) is arranged on the carbon dioxide pipeline.

6. A fully automatic sample loading system according to claim 1, wherein: a nitrogen sensor (122) is arranged in the incubator (111), and the nitrogen sensor (122) is a micro fuel cell sensor.

7. A fully automatic sample loading system according to claim 1, wherein: be equipped with the nitrogen gas entry in incubator (111), the nitrogen gas entry has nitrogen gas holding vessel (123) through nitrogen gas pipeline intercommunication, be equipped with third solenoid valve (124) on the nitrogen gas pipeline.

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