DIAPHRAGM DISPENSER

• US 3,572,552 A
• Filed: 07/25/1969
• Issued: 03/30/1971
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/1969
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Perry W. Guinn
• Original Assignee: Perry W. Guinn
• Inventors: Guinn, Perry W.
• Application Number:
  US04/844,830
• Time in Patent Office: 613 Days
• US Class Current: 222/263
• CPC Class Codes: B01L 2300/0829 Multi-well plates; Microtitration plates
• CPC Class Codes: B01L 2400/0481 squeezing of channels or chambers
• CPC Class Codes: B01L 3/021 Pipettes, i.e. with only one conduit for withdrawing and redistributing liquids
• CPC Class Codes: G01F 11/08 of the diaphragm or bellows type

Abstract

The present invention comprises a diaphragm dispenser for fluids and includes plural charge-receiving chambers having respective variable upper extremities. The latter are defined by a diaphragm means which is selectively deformable, and in desired degrees, within said chambers as fluid pressure is applied to the upper side of the diaphragm. This is accomplished in one form of the invention by a plunger and, preferably, the same actuates a given hydraulic fluid exposed between the diaphragm and the plunger. The plunger is preferably calibrated so that a given depression of the operating piston thereof effects predetermined incremental displacements of respective portions of the diaphragm within the charged chambers so that the latter may receive and discharge respective portions of a test liquid in a manner hereinafter described.

Claims

1. A fluid dispenser including, in combination, structure defining plural, vertically disposed chambers, a cavity horizontally disposed over said chambers, flexible diaphragm means disposed between said chambers and said cavity and forming a lower boundary of said cavity, fluid means disposed in said cavity for depressing said diaphragm means within said chambers when said fluid means is under pressure, and means for releasably applying pressure to said fluid means connected to said structure and communicating with said cavity above said diaphragm means.

2. Structure according to claim 1 wherein said pressure applying means comprises a syringe.

3. Structure according to claim 1 wherein said pressure applying means comprises a syringe having a cylinder, a reciprocatingly translatable plunger operatively disposed within said cylinder, and a tube affixed to an and communicating with said cylinder and said cavity of said structure above said diaphragm means, said fluid means filling said cylinder beneath said plunger, said tube, and said cavity.

4. Structure according to claim 1 wherein said fluid means comprises a hydraulic liquid.

5. Structure according to claim 1 wherein said dispenser includes plural, needlelike cylinders communicating with said chambers and fixedly disposed with respect to and depending from said defining structure.

6. The dispenser of claim 1 wherein said diaphragm means comprises an elastomeric diaphragm sheet disposed over said chambers.

7. The dispenser of claim 1 wherein said fluid means comprises a gaseous medium.

8. The dispenser of claim 1 wherein said fluid means comprises a hydraulic liquid, said pressure means comprising a syringe.

9. The dispenser of claim 3 wherein said syringe includes a plunger return spring.

10. The structure of claim 5 wherein said dispenser includes end support means disposed upon opposite sides of said cylinders and depending therebeneath.