Emerson Miniature Valve Product Focus: ASCO Miniature Fluidic Products in Clinical Diagnostic Applications

ASCO liquid isolation products are designed to minimise heat transfer to thermally-sensitive media, reduce consumption of costly detection reagents, and provide the industry’s most chemically-inert materials, all while providing the lowest power consumption in the industry.

The ASCO miniature isolation products combine engineering expertise and industry requirements to support OEM new product development. At Emerson, we strive to understand our customers applications to provide a customised solution that is precisely tailored to fit their unique requirements.

One key benefit with ASCO miniature isolation valves is their ultra-low dead volume. We understand that detection reagents and washing buffers can be costly, so we engineer our products with this key feature in mind - to reduce the internal volume within the products fluidic channel. In fact, ASCO miniature products have internal volumes as low as 10µl, effectively reducing the cost per diagnostic assay and increasing instrument throughput. Finally, the threat of cross-contamination between samples is effectively eliminated by reducing the internal volume within the flow channels.

Another key feature of the ASCO miniature isolation product families is their reduction in power consumption by the OEM instrument. Instrument power budgets are critical to the OEM design team, especially with the advent of Point of Care (POC) testing, to provide a cost effective and efficient device. Our line of miniature products has some of the lowest power coils in the industry. For example, the ASCO Series 282 8mm isolation valve requires only 1W of power. Most products can be manufactured with special power-save circuitry (hit-and-hold) to reduce power consumption even further once the valve product has actuated. Additionally, the low power consumption of our products directly impacts the stability of costly detection reagents and wash buffers. A reduction in power results in a significant reduction in the heat that is transferred to the media within the fluidic path of the valve product.

Lastly, the ASCO line of miniature isolation products are engineered to withstand some of the industry’s harshest chemicals. Materials like PEEK, FFKM, and PPS are standard in our products due to their inertness qualities to harsh and/or corrosive fluids. We understand that each OEM will have a different set of requirements suited to a unique application, and providing the best construction materials means less engineering time and a faster-to-market instrument.