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EP-4308300-B1 - APPARATUS FOR A DISPENSING DEVICE

EP4308300B1EP 4308300 B1EP4308300 B1EP 4308300B1EP-4308300-B1

Inventors

  • MAZHAR, Umair
  • BÖLTZ, Harry

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20220317

Claims (15)

  1. System (18) for a dispensing device (26) for dispensing a liquid, the system (28) comprising an apparatus (1) comprising at least a through-hole (2) for receiving a well (19), a first component (10) and a second component (12) that are connected with each other to form a chamber (3) that surrounds at least a portion of the through-hole (2), wherein a substance (35) for cooling and/or heating the liquid located in the well (19) is arranged in the chamber (3) and at least one well (19) for receiving the liquid, wherein the well (19) is arranged in the through-hole (2) of the apparatus (1) and comprises an upper opening (20) for introducing the liquid and a lower opening (21) for dispensing the liquid, in particular in form of droplets, characterized in that the lower opening (21) has a diameter between 60µm and 200µm.
  2. System (18) according to claim 1, characterized in that a. the substance (35) is a non-gaseous substance (35) and/or in that b. the substance (35) comprises a plurality of solid particles and/or in that c. the substance (35) is a gel substance (35) or a liquid substance (35) and/or in that d. the substance (35) has a higher thermal conductivity and/or a higher heat capacity than the first component (10) and/or the second component (12).
  3. System (18) according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the apparatus (1) comprises a third component (11) wherein a. the first component (10), the second component (12) and the third component (11) are fixed together, in particular to form a closed structure, and/or in that b. in a plane extending along a longitudinal direction (L) of the through hole (2) the second component (12) is arranged between the first component (10) and the third component (11).
  4. System (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the first component (10) comprises a protruding wall (6) surrounding at least a part of the through hole (2) or several through holes (2).
  5. System (18) according to claim 4, characterized in that an end of the wall (6) is in contact with the second component (12).
  6. System (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the second component (12) and/or the third component (11) comprise an opening (16, 17) that is part of the through hole (2).
  7. System (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the second component (12) has a recessed portion (7) that a. extends along a longitudinal direction (L) of the through-hole (2) away from the first component (10) and/or in that b. the wall (6) is in contact with the recessed portion (7).
  8. System (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the apparatus (1) comprises at least one isolation chamber (13, 14) comprising an isolation substance that differs from the substance (35).
  9. System (18) according to claim 8, characterized in that a. the apparatus (1) comprises a lateral isolation chamber (13) that is defined by the first component (10), the second component (12) and the third component (11) or in that b. the apparatus (1) comprises a lateral isolation chamber (13) that is defined by the first component (10), the second component (12) and the third component (11) wherein the lateral isolation chamber (13) extends in circumferential direction of the apparatus (1).
  10. System (18) according to claim 8 or 9, characterized in that a. the apparatus (1) comprises a bottom isolation chamber (14) that is defined by the third component (11) and the second component (12) or in that b. the apparatus (1) comprises a bottom isolation chamber (14) that is defined by the third component (11) and the second component (12) wherein the bottom isolation chamber (14) extends on a lower end of the apparatus (1).
  11. System (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 10, characterized in that a. the through-hole (2) has a cylindrical shape and/or in that b. the apparatus (1) comprises a set of eight through-holes (2), arranged in two consecutive rows of four through-holes (2) and/or in that c. the well (19) comprises an upper rim (22) at one end and/or a tapered portion (23) at the other end, wherein when the dispensing well (19) is inserted into the through-hole (2), the upper rim (22) leans against a top surface (24) of the apparatus (1) and/or in that d. a part of the well (19), in particular a tapered portion (23) comprising the lower opening (21) of the well (19), protrudes from a bottom surface (25) of the apparatus (1), in particular of the third component (11).
  12. Dispensing device (26) comprising a system (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 11 and a, in particular stationary, holder (34) for receiving the system (18).
  13. Dispensing device (26) according to claim 12, characterized in that the dispensing device (26) comprises a dispensing head (36) for dispensing liquid located in the well (19), wherein the dispensing head (36) is moveable relative to the holder (34) and/or to the apparatus (1) and/or system (18)
  14. Method (100) for operating the dispensing device (26) according to claim 12 or 13, the method (100) comprising the steps: cooling or heating (S101) the apparatus (1) by placing the apparatus (1) in a cooling system or heating system; extracting (S102) the apparatus (1) from the cooling system or heating system, in particular once the apparatus (1) has reached a predefined temperature; inserting (S103) a well (19) in the through-hole (2) of the apparatus (1); and performing a dispensing operation (S104) by means of the dispensing device (26) for dispensing liquid located in the well (19).
  15. Use of a system (18) according to one of the claims 1 to 11 in a dispensing device according to claim 12 or 13.

Description

The invention relates to a system for a dispensing device comprising an apparatus for a dispensing device. Also, the invention relates to a dispensing device comprising the system and a corresponding operating method and the use of the apparatus and/or system in a dispensing device. Liquid handling is a fundamental process in many laboratories. In modern life science laboratories, high-throughput liquid handling is frequently needed for the purpose of efficiency. For liquid dispensing at the micro-, nano-, or even picoliter level, the surface adhesion is a fundamental factor that affects the performance. Basically, liquid-dispensing technologies have to overcome surface adhesion and dispense the droplet from the dispensing tool. When the volume is very small, gravity is not sufficient for dropping viscous samples. A variety of methods have been developed to overcome the problem by generating additional driving forces to dispense the droplet. In general, those methods can be classified into two categories: contact and noncontact dispensing, respectively. In contact dispensing techniques, such as pipetting, a touch-off is necessary to complete the liquid dispensing. When the liquid attaches to a substrate, a drag-back action is done to overcome the surface tension between liquid and the dispensing tip, without which the liquid will not drop. Contact dispensing is most popular for dispensing samples of small volume from nano- to microliter because of its simplicity, reliability, and low cost. However, reliable dispensing requires an accurate positioning system. Furthermore, special attention must be paid to hard contact, which may damage the dispenser tip by colliding with the container. In noncontact dispensing techniques, the liquid is ejected from an orifice instead of using a contact between the liquid and the surface container. It reduces or eliminates some disadvantages of contact dispensing mentioned above. In particular, cross-contamination can be avoided. The most common approaches are based on the inkjet printing technology, thereby using different dispensing means, such as solenoid valves, piezoelectric dispensers, acoustic dispensers, electrostatic devices, etc. Typically, liquid handling refers to small volume pipetting operations, however, at the micro-, nano- or picoliter level, the number of transferred samples can be huge. Under these conditions, liquid handling by hand can be very time-consuming and, in some cases, impractical. Consequently, there is a strong demand for automated liquid handling systems. Very basic automated systems can dispense an allotted volume of liquid from a motorized pipette. More complicated systems can also manipulate the position of the dispensers and containers (often a Cartesian coordinate robot) and/or integrate additional laboratory devices, such as microplate readers, centrifuges, spectrophotometric devices, heater/shakers, storage devices, etc.. For some applications it is necessary to keep the liquid at a predetermined temperature as otherwise the liquid becomes unusable for further processing. The predetermined temperature can be higher or lower than the environmental temperature. This leads to that the wells comprising the liquid are stored in an apparatus for cooling or heating the well with the liquid to a predetermined temperature. Afterwards, the wells are located in a wells carrier and the carrier is placed in a dispensing device. Due to the temperature difference between the liquid and the environmental it has to be made sure that the liquids are dispensed soon after removing them from the apparatus. This is sometimes not possible and/or the dispensing order has to be changed that leads to a more complicate dispensing process. JP H09 73977A discloses an adhesive extractor for dispensing adhesive when an electronic component is mounted on a substrate. US 2020/107541A1 discloses an apparatus to preserve and identify biological samples at cryogenic conditions. The object of the invention is therefore to provide an apparatus for a dispensing device, by means of which the dispensing process is not complicate even though liquids shall be dispensed by the dispensing device that have a predetermined temperature being different from the environmental temperature. The object is solved by a subject-matter as claimed in claim 1. The inventive apparatus has the advantage that a well, in particular, the liquid arranged in the well, can be hold at the predetermined temperature. This is advantageous as it is not necessary anymore to change the dispensing order in a dispensing device when a fluid has to be dispensed which has to be held at a temperature being different than the environmental temperature. Thus, the apparatus enables that the dispensing process can be kept simple. The liquid present in the well can be a sample liquid to be analyzed in a scientific experiment. The possibility to cool and/or heat the liquid can be extremely advantageous. In fact, the same