Solid material comminution or disintegration – Apparatus – Miscellaneous
Patent
1985-01-07
1987-10-06
Rosenbaum, Mark
Solid material comminution or disintegration
Apparatus
Miscellaneous
241 1, 241 2, B02C 1918
Patent
active
046977511
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic disintegrating apparatus and, more particularly, to an ultrasonic disintegrating apparatus for use in separating small organs from cells, featuring a special vessel containing the solution of the cells to be disintegrated.
2. Background Art
In recent years, in the fields of clinical inspection, genetic engineering and so forth, it is often conducted to separate small organs from the cells by breaking the cell membrane, in order to investigate chemical compositions and biological properties of the small organs in the cell. For instance, in the field of clinical inspection, it is often attempted to disintegrate the cell for the purpose of biochemical analysis of the fluids in hematid or white blood cell. To this end, hitherto, ultrasonic disintegrating apparatus has been used for disintegrating the cell by ultrasonic waves. The conventional ultrasonic apparatus includes an oscillator, a vibrator and a horn or a tip. In use, the horn or tip is inserted from the upper side into a beaker or a test tube accommodating a solution containing hematid centrifugally separated from the blood and is immersed in the solution. The vibrator is excited by the output of the oscillator to impart an ultrasonic vibration to the hematid in the blood to cause a cavitation thereby to disintegrate the cell membranes of hematids or the like. In this conventional apparatus, a large quantity of the objects to be disintegrated, such as cells, are placed in a vessel and are uniformly vibrated by the horn, so that it is possible to disintegrate a large quantity of cells at a time. On the other hand, this conventional apparatus suffers from the following disadvantage. Namely, since the horn is kept inserted into the vessel, the inlet of the vessel has to be kept opened, i.e. the inside of the vessel is not sealed. When a noxious object is treated, therefore, the object is changed into aerosol by the application of the ultrasonic wave and is scattered widely. This is quite inconvenient for the inspectors and researchers. In addition, the object to be disintegrated is liable to be contaminated by external bacteria and microorganisms. Consequently, the small organs of the disintegrated cells cannot be held in the pure state and the quality of the research may be impaired so as to fail to meet the object of the research. Furthermore, the opened vessel tends to allow the leakage of the water content to cause a change in the pH value to failing to meet the expected result of disintegration. For instance, in the biochemical analysis of the hematids and white blood cells in the clinical inspection, it is necessary to avoid as much as possible the leak of water and change of the pH value. Unfortunately, however, the conventional apparatus could not adequately satisfy this demand. In a technique called "cell fractionation", the fluid produced as a result of breaking of the cells, i.e. the solution suspending the small organs in the cells, is subjected to a centrifugal separation so as to separate the small organs from one another. Since the conventional disintegrating method employs an open vessel, the fluid has to be poured into different vessels before subjected to the centrifugal separation. Consequently, the efficiency of the work is impaired disadvantageously. The temperature of the fluid filling the vessel is a factor which largely affects the propagation of the ultrasonic vibration and also the change of the object to be disintegrated, such as the cells. It is, therefore, necessary to conduct a suitable temperature control. In the case of conventional apparatus, the temperature control is conducted by cooling the fluid from the outside of the vessel, so that the control and management of the temperature are extremely difficult to conduct.
The propagation of the ultrasonic vibration, for instance, becomes higher as the fluid temperature gets lower. In addition, since the object to be disintegrated is usually stored at a low temperature, the expected disintegration
REFERENCES:
patent: 2738172 (1956-03-01), Spiess et al.
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