Fully automatic sample dispenser

摘要

The fully automatic sample dispenser is a device for supplying and pyrolytically decomposing non vapourisable solids by heating them to the physical Curie point. An analysis is carried out in a downstream commercial infrared spectrometer or mass spectrometer into whose inlet the sample dispenser can be inserted in a sealed manner. A plurality of separate pyrolysis chambers are provided as a magazine for receiving the solid which is in each case stored in a glass tube made of a ferromagnetic material, and as pyrolysis positions. Upstream of the pyrolysis chambers is a carrier-gas switch-over valve which flushes a pyrolysis chamber with carrier gas at the same time as the high-frequency induction heating system of a pyrolysis chamber is actuated so that the analysis of the solid samples can proceed automatically and sequentially. The decomposed, individual solid samples are therefore fed sequentially to the analyser by the shortest route via the common gas outlet. The mechanical design is extremely simple, but known special structures make use of microrobots with electronically controlled injection and ejection devices and only make possible a mere "supply" of the samples. These instruments are specially designed for certain pyrolysis reactors or gas chromatographs and their analytical accuracy is frequently unsatisfactory.