What is a fully automatic biochemical analyzer and the principle of a biochemical analyzer

Chemistry Analyzer is one of the important analytical instruments often used in clinical testing. It measures various biochemical indicators through the analysis of blood or other body fluids: such as transaminases, hemoglobin, albumin, total protein, cholesterol, and muscle liver. , glucose, inorganic phosphorus, amylase, calcium, etc. Comprehensive analysis combined with other clinical data can help diagnose diseases, evaluate organ function, identify concurrent factors, and determine the benchmark for future treatment.


The so-called fully automatic biochemical analyzer is an instrument that automates the steps of sampling, adding reagents, mixing, insulating reaction, detection, result calculation and display, and cleaning during the analysis process. It can completely imitate and replace manual operations. Therefore, It can be considered that the analyzers currently on the market that require manual replacement of cuvettes (or cuvettes) are not truly "fully automatic" analyzers. The fully automatic biochemical analyzer is sensitive, accurate and fast, which not only improves work efficiency, but also reduces subjective errors and improves inspection quality.
 

The fully automatic biochemical analyzer involves optics, precision machinery, automatic control, electronic circuits, thermal engineering, biochemistry, analytical chemistry and other disciplines, and requires high precision and high reliability. It is a very complex system.


Principle of biochemical analyzer
The fully automatic biochemical analyzer is an optical analytical instrument, which is based on the selective absorption of light by substances, that is, spectrophotometry. The monochromator divides the complex color light emitted by the light source into monochromatic light. The monochromatic light of a specific wavelength passes through the colorimetric cell containing the sample solution. The photoelectric converter converts the transmitted light into an electrical signal and sends it to the signal processing system for analysis.
 
Spectrophotometry is a method established based on the selective absorption of electromagnetic radiation by substances with different molecular structures. It belongs to molecular absorption spectrum analysis. When light passes through the solution, the molecules of the substance to be measured absorb monochromatic light of a certain wavelength, and the intensity of the absorbed light is proportional to the distance through which the light passes. Although it is now known that Bouguer had proposed the mathematical expression of the above relationship as early as 1729, it is generally believed that Lambert discovered the expression as early as 1760, and its mathematical form is:
T=I/I 0 =e –kb
Among them, I 0 is the incident light intensity, I is the transmitted light intensity, e is the base of natural logarithm, k is a constant, and b is the optical path length (usually expressed in cm).

Beer's law is equivalent to Bouguer's law, except that Beer's law is expressed in terms of concentration. Combine the two laws to form the Beer-Bouguer law:
T=I/I 0 =e –kbc
Where c is the concentration of the light-absorbing substance (usually in g/L or mg/L). After taking the base 10 logarithm of the above equation, we get a linear expression:
A=-logT=-log(I/I 0 )=log(I 0 /I)=εbc
where A is the absorbance and ε is the molar absorption coefficient or extinction coefficient. The above expression is often called Beer's Law. It shows that when monochromatic light of a specific wavelength passes through a solution, the absorbance of the sample is proportional to the concentration of absorbers in the solution and the distance the light passes.

The molar extinction coefficient is determined by the properties of a given substance, given the wavelength, solution, and temperature. In fact, the measured molar extinction coefficient is also related to the instrument used. Therefore, in quantitative analysis, the molar extinction coefficient of a known substance is usually not used, but one or more known concentrations of the substance to be measured are used to make a calibration or working curve.

Because the energy difference between the ground state and the excited state is large for electronic transitions, the electrons of almost all molecules are in the ground state at room temperature. The speed of absorbing light and returning to the ground state is very fast, and equilibrium is quickly achieved, which makes the quantitative accuracy of light absorption quite high. According to different working bands, spectrophotometry can be divided into vacuum-ultraviolet, visible light, ultraviolet-visible and ultraviolet-visible-near infrared. The working bands are 0.1nm~200nm, 350nm~700nm, 185nm~900nm and 185nm~2500nm respectively. . For clinical biochemical analysis, the working wavelength is generally required to be 340nm~800nm, which belongs to ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry. The simple linear relationship between absorbance and concentration and the relative ease of measuring UV-visible light have made UV-visible spectrophotometry the basis for thousands of quantitative analysis methods.

Application areas of fully automatic biochemical analyzers
Fully automatic biochemical analyzers are widely used in the field of medical testing. It can be used in many aspects such as clinical diagnosis, disease monitoring, and drug research and development. Specific applications include but are not limited to:

Disease diagnosis: The fully automatic biochemical analyzer can detect various biochemical indicators in the blood, such as blood sugar, blood lipids, liver function indicators, etc., to help doctors diagnose diabetes, hypertension, hepatitis and other diseases.
Treatment monitoring: During the treatment process, the fully automatic biochemical analyzer can monitor the metabolism of the drug, evaluate the treatment effect, and adjust the treatment plan in a timely manner.
Health management: People can also use fully automatic biochemical analyzers for health testing and management to understand their own health status and prevent the occurrence of diseases.
The future development trend of fully automatic biochemical analyzers
With the continuous advancement of science and technology, fully automatic biochemical analyzers are also constantly developing and improving. In the future, we can look forward to the following development trends:

Multifunctionality: Fully automatic biochemical analyzers will increasingly integrate multiple functions. They can not only perform routine biochemical analysis, but also detect trace elements, tumor markers, etc., to meet the needs of different fields.

Intelligent: Future fully automatic biochemical analyzers will be more intelligent, able to automatically adjust parameters according to different sample types and analysis needs, and provide personalized analysis results and suggestions.

Portability: With the development of miniaturization technology, fully automatic biochemical analyzers will become increasingly smaller and lighter, and can even be portable, making them convenient for use in clinical diagnosis and field medical treatment.

Data interconnection: The fully automatic biochemical analyzer will be deeply integrated with the Internet, big data and other technologies to achieve real-time sharing and remote monitoring of data, providing more intelligent and convenient solutions for medical and health management.

Conclusion
The emergence and development of fully automatic biochemical analyzers have greatly promoted the advancement of medical testing technology and made important contributions to human health. With the continuous innovation and application of science and technology, we have reason to believe that fully automatic biochemical analyzers will play a more important role in the future, bringing more possibilities and opportunities to medical diagnosis, treatment and health management.