JPH07159417A - Method of washing passage of automatic chemical analyzer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To achieve a washing of a reagent passage totally necessary for maintaining the performance of an automatic chemical analyzer easily and effectively without replacement between a reagent and, a detergent and purified water. CONSTITUTION:A pump 3 and a pipetter are provided to feed a detergent 1 and purified water 2 to a reagent passage, a three-way solenoid valve 5 to switch passages of the detergent 1 and the purified water 2 and a solenoid valve 6 to control the feeding of liquid, a multi-way changeover valve 7 to switch over to a plurality of analysis channels sequentially, a changeover valve 10 to switch the passages of a suction side tube 8 and a discharge side tube 9 and, drain passages 11 and 12 to drain the detergent and the purified water. A reagent storage 14 is provided to have a reagent container 13 set therein.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic chemical analyzer for use in biochemical tests, immunoserologic tests, etc., which efficiently and efficiently cleans a reagent flow path required for maintaining reagent dispensing accuracy. The present invention relates to a method for cleaning a flow channel, which is intended to be effectively performed.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an automatic chemical analyzer of a dispenser type that dispenses a reagent through a reagent flow path such as a tube, if the flow path is neglected, the dispensing accuracy will deteriorate due to contamination or clogging of the reagent flow path. Reagent channel cleaning is required. In the conventional reagent flow channel cleaning method, the tube inserted in the reagent is removed to take out the reagent, and the detergent is replaced with purified water to wash away the detergent, and the washing operation is performed again to return to the reagent. . Therefore, even if the cleaning operation is automated, manpower is required to replace the detergent and purified water. Further, the method of cleaning with the reagent set has a drawback that the reagent suction side such as a tube inserted into the reagent cannot be cleaned.

[0003]

The conventional technique is one in which a person takes out a reagent and puts a detergent on it, and then automatically cleans the reagent flow path. For the work requiring manual labor before the automatic cleaning, No consideration was given and it took a lot of time to replace the reagent with the detergent and the purified water. In particular, automatic chemical analyzers in recent years tend to perform multi-item simultaneous analysis, and there are many types of reagents, and the work is not easy. Further, the taken out reagent cannot be left at room temperature to prevent deterioration, and it is necessary to secure a space for storing it in a refrigerator or the like.

An object of the present invention is to efficiently and effectively wash the entire reagent flow channel without removing the reagent and replacing it with a container containing detergent and purified water.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The reagent dispensing flow path has a reagent suction side and a discharge side. In order to achieve the above object, in addition to the conventional discharge side drainage flow path, a drainage flow path into which a reagent suction tube can be inserted near the reagent set position is provided.
The reagent suction side and the discharge side drainage flow paths are provided with a liquid feeder and a flow path switching valve for flowing a detergent and purified water respectively to wash the reagent flow path.

[0006]

The liquid feeder operates to feed the detergent and the purified water into the reagent passage, and the passage switching valve switches the detergent and the reagent passage first, and then the purified water and the reagent passage. The flow path switching valves on the reagent suction side and the discharge side are sequentially connected to the respective flow paths. As a result, the detergent and purified water can be alternately poured into the drainage channels provided on the reagent suction side and the discharge side, so that the entire reagent channel can be simply replaced by replacing the reagent suction tube from the reagent bottle with the drainage channel. Can be washed.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.

The reagent flow path cleaning mechanism of the present invention comprises a pump 3 for feeding the detergent 1 and purified water 2 to the reagent flow path, a pipetter 4, a three-way solenoid valve 5 for switching the flow paths of the detergent and purified water, and a pump. Solenoid valve for controlling liquid 6, Multiple switching valve 7 for sequentially switching to a plurality of analysis channels, Switching valve 10 for switching flow paths of suction side tube 8 and discharge side tube 9, Drainage liquid for discharging detergent and purified water Flow paths 11 and 12, and reagent container 13
It is composed of a reagent storage 14 for setting.

The operation principle of the above configuration will be described below.

When analyzing each component in the sample, the suction side tube 8 is inserted into the reagent container 13 and is added to the reaction container into which the sample is dispensed through the discharge side tube 9. . When the suction side tube 8 is replaced from the reagent container 13 to the drainage flow path 11 when the reagent flow path is washed, and a cleaning instruction is given, the switching valve 10 is first connected to the suction side tube 8 and the three-way solenoid valve 5 is connected. Is connected to the detergent 1 side, and the detergent 1 is sent to the drainage passage 11 by the vertical movement of the pipettor 4 and the opening / closing of the solenoid valve 6.

Next, the switching valve 10 is switched to the discharge tube 9 side, and the detergent 1 is sent to the drainage passage 12 by the vertical movement of the pipettor 4 and the opening / closing of the electromagnetic valve 6. Pipette 4 for a fixed time
Operation is stopped and the detergent is accumulated in the flow path, and then the switching valve 1
0 is connected to the suction tube 8 side, the three-way solenoid valve 5 is connected to the purified water 2 side, the purified water 2 is sent to the drainage flow passage 11 by the operation of the pump 3 and the opening of the solenoid valve 6, and the detergent component Rinse off. Further, the switching valve 10 is connected to the discharge tube 9 side, and similarly, the purified water 2 is sent to the drainage flow path 12 to wash away the detergent component, and the processing is ended. The multiple switching valve 7
Can be sequentially switched to the reagent channels of a plurality of analysis channels to connect the channels, and the same washing operation as above can be performed.

According to this embodiment, the entire channel can be washed while the reagent is set in the reagent storage, so that the washing can be easily and effectively performed.

[0013]

According to the present invention, since the flow passage can be washed while the reagent is set in the reagent storage, it is not necessary to separately prepare a labor for taking out the reagent and a space for storing the taken out reagent. Further, there is also an effect of reducing accidents such as spilling the reagent when taking out and resetting the reagent. Further, even if the work of replacing with detergent and purified water is not performed, the detergent cleaning and the cleaning with purified water can be performed continuously only by the first cleaning instruction, so that the cleaning time can be shortened as a whole. In addition, if this method is combined with the automatic shutdown function of the current product, a series of cleaning to power-off is automatically performed only by a cleaning instruction, so that the cleaning time is almost equal and a great effect can be obtained. To be

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a reagent flow channel cleaning mechanism including a drainage flow channel of the present invention in a reagent dispensing flow channel.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Detergent, 2 ... Purified water, 3 ... Pump, 4 ... Pipette, 5
... three-way solenoid valve, 6 ... solenoid valve, 7 ... multiple switching valve, 8 ... suction side tube, 9 ... discharge side tube, 10 ... switching valve, 1
1, 12 ... Drainage channel, 13 ... Reagent container, 14 ... Reagent storage.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An automatic chemical analyzer in which a certain amount of a reagent for reacting with a target component in a sample is sequentially added from a reagent channel such as a tube, and a detergent drain channel is provided in a reagent set section. A method for cleaning a flow path of an automatic chemical analyzer, which comprises cleaning the entire reagent flow path without replacing the reagent with a detergent.