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Apparatuses and methods for wireless monitoring and control of supplies for environmental sampling and chromatographic apparatuses

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/980,131, filed Oct. 30, 2007, which is a divisional application of U.S. parent application Ser. No. 11/699,169 filed Jan. 29, 2007, entitled APPARATUSES AND METHODS FOR WIRELESS MONITORING AND CONTROL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SAMPLING AND CHROMATOGRAPHIC APPARATUSES by inventors Dale A. Davison, Dale L. Meyer, Daniel G. Jameson, Jack E. Silver, Jon L. Curran and Ruth A. Pipes.

This invention relates to apparatuses and methods for the wireless monitoring, identification and control of environmental and chromatographic apparatuses and synthetic chemistry and more particularly for control of supplies used by the environmental and chromatographic apparatuses.

Wireless communication for the purpose of monitoring, identifying and controlling devices and apparatus are known. For example RFID devices and Bluetooth devices are in widespread use to identify devices and transfer information to a receiver.

One prior art apparatus and method for identifying and providing information about a chromatographic column to a receiver is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,893 to Ozawa, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,971,506 to Hassinen and U.S. Pat. No. 6,458,273 to Krakover. U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,893 discloses a semi-conductor having a non-volatile memory embedded within it and storing information such as changes in the specification of the column, mixing ratios of eluant flow rate, theoretical plates and other information. The semi-conductor device is used for wireless communication to permit a data processor to receive the information stored in the semi-conductor. U.S. Pat. No. 6,971,506 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,458,273 disclose a test tube carrier with an RFID tag on test tubes and a micro titer plate that is bar coded.

However, prior art wireless identification and communication techniques have not satisfactorily resolved many of the identification and communication problems that occur in liquid chromatography and environmental sampling.

It is known to maintain supplies of products conveniently located for customers. In one prior art system providing for the maintenance of supplies at or near a customer site, wireless devices are used to control the inventory of the products at the convenient location and to provide for the access to the products by prearranged customers. The wireless communication devices enable the point of purchase to be near the customer by generating records such as billing records in accordance with access by an identified customer to the local site and removal of tagged consumables by the identified customer. In these prior art systems, information used in generating the billing and accounts payable and the like for the customer are automatically generated at the site by RFID devices connected to the products and this information is transmitted to a central office to permit convenient local storage near a customer without customer paperwork at the point of purchase near the customer. These point of purchase systems utilizing RFID devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,293,705 and U.S. patent publications 2007/0069018, 2006/0190628, 2006/0081705, 2006/0015752, 2005/0194437, 2004/0178264, 2005/0127177, 2005/0125312, 2005/0040952, 2004/0232231, 2004/0232230, 2004/0222298, and 2004/0222297.

This prior art point of purchase system has several disadvantages, such as for example: (1) there are multiple purchases that must be kept track of by the customer and by the seller even though this process is automated with the aid of the RFID devices; (2) the long term cost to the customer of the consumable items is not predictable before the purchases are made; (3) the amount of stock that must be kept must be carefully managed to avoid exceeding shelf life; (4) the cost spent per year out of a budget or for whatever time period of the budget is unpredictable; and (5) the storage space for the consumables requires expensive monitoring and contains consumables owned by a remote seller until after it is removed by the customer from the local storage facility causing excessive insurance paperwork and capital expenses.

Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a novel wireless multiple fraction instrument and process such as for example, an instrument for wireless monitoring and control of environmental sampling apparatuses or chromatographic apparatuses.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a system for permitting chromatographic apparatuses to communicate with other chromatographic apparatuses.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a system by which environmental apparatuses may communicate with other environmental apparatuses.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system for recording the past history of a chromatographic column on the column.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system for the wireless communication of environmental sampling apparatuses with other apparatuses.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system that enables a central microprocessor to control components on several chromatographic systems to coordinate or run them.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system which enables a microprocessor to control components of several environmental sample collectors.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system for providing to a controller a map or plan indicating the position of one or more sample containers.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system for indicating the position of an environmental sample container holder or a chromatographic tube rack or micro titer plate or the like.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system for indicating information on chromatographic columns intended to cooperate with both liquid chromatographic systems and other sample separating systems such as a mass spectrometer or gas chromatograph.

It is a still further object of the invention to provide a novel system for controlling robotic transport arrangements for moving a column from one separation system such as a liquid chromatographic system to another such as a mass spectrometer.