Automatic evaporator system

An evaporation chamber comprising:

• means for evaporating sample solutions, including,
• a container having a bottom wall, said bottom wall having an outside surface, an inside surface and a known thermal energy transfer characteristic with respect to thermal energy transferred between said outside and inside surfaces;
• electrical heater means disposed on said outside surface for applying heat to said bottom wall as a function of current flow through said electrical heater means;
• temperature sensor means for sensing the temperature of said electrical heater means at said outside surface and providing a measured temperature signal as a function of the sensed temperature;
• and
• feedback means responsive to said measured temperature signal and a signal representing a desired temperature for controlling current flow through said electrical heater means to maintain the sensed temperature in substantially fixed relation to said desired temperature.

A system comprising:

• means for successively and automatically evaporating a plurality of sample solutions, each having a respective predetermined volume, including,
• an enclosure means;
• supply means for successively delivering the predetermined volumes of said sample solutions to said enclosure means;
• means responsive to delivery of a sample solution to said enclosure means for automatically evaporating the delivered sample solution;
• and
• means for automatically cleansing said supply means and said enclosure means after a predetermined volume of a sample solution has been evaporated.

A method comprising:

• automatically evaporating a predetermined volume of liquid from a sample solution having a known vapor pressure versus temperature characteristic curve, by,
• delivery at least part of a predetermined volume of said sample solution to an evaporation chamber;
• and
• evaporating said sample solution from said evaporation chamber at a predetermined rate by controlling the temperature and pressure in said chamber to maintain the pressure and temperature of the liquid in said chamber substantially on said known vapor pressure versus temperature characteristic curve.

A method comprising:

• successively and automatically evaporating a plurality of sample solutions, each having a respective predetermined volume, by,
• successively delivering the predetermined volumes of said sample solutions to an evaporation chamber;
• automatically evaporating each of the delivered sample solutions in said evaporation chamber;
• and
• automatically cleansing said evaporation chamber and flow paths associated therewith after the predetermined volume of each sample solution has been evaporated.