Jet ring cell: a tool for flow injection spectroscopy and microscopy on a renewable solid support.
A new flow cell design for spectroscopic measurements of suspensions, the jet ring cell, is introduced. This cell exploits radial flow through a narrow ring-shaped gap to retain suspended particles within the detection region. This ring constitutes a detection volume of well-defined area from which the trapped particles can be instantaneously removed at will. The bed of particles thus forms a renewable surface, which can be probed by reflectance, fluorescence, or chemiluminescence using a microscope or optical fiber. This device should prove useful for microscopic study of cells, for automated immunoassays, and for preconcentration of analytes on sorbents with in situ spectroscopic detection. In conjunction with a fiber optic detection system, the jet ring cell becomes a component of a renewable chemical sensor system.