There is provided for a heated humidifier used in respiratory therapy a method of lowering the heating cost, reducing the waste of humidifier fluid, lowering the compliance volume and reducing the labor costs attending water level maintenance by placing a removable, space filling, volume reducing insert into the reservoir of existing heated humidifiers. The resulting modified humidifier may be used both for adult patients as well as pediatric and neonatal patients.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is a continuation-in-part of my copending application, Ser. No. 677,394, filed Dec. 3, 1984, now abandoned, all of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
A humidifier, especially for room humidification, has a container removably mounted on a base and communicating with a sterilizing chamber to which the water is delivered and in which the water is exposed to a UV lamp with sufficient residence time to effect sterilization. From that chamber the sterile water is delivered to a heating chamber formed in a casting and communicating with a duct in the container from which the steam is supplied to the room. A thermostat on the casting cuts off the heater upon a failure to supply water to the latter. The apparatus can have a humidistat for turning on and off the heater.
A humidifier assembly includes a cartridge secured in the humidification chamber cavity for displacing between about 20% and about 80% of the volume of the cavity.
Transfer of articles of different types between article handling devices within the apparatus and the user outside of it is effected through a limited number of access ports by an article gripping and transporting robot that undergoes multi-directional translational movement and that is capable of gripping articles of different kinds, sizes and shapes. The robot may be and preferably is also used to perform maintenance services upon article handling devices of the apparatus.
The present invention is a vaporizer apparatus (1) and method for uniformly extracting active ingredients of specimen of crude natural product, or inert particulate matrix impregnated with volatile substances without pyrolysis which uses hot air (2), or a heated inert gas stream to volatilize the specimen. The heated air or gas in introduced from below (from either a hot air gun or a high-pressure tank connected to a heat exchanger), and ascends through in most embodiments through a permeable support structure (4) (e.g., fritted glass disk, etc.) subsequently causing specimen particules disposed on the permeable support structure to be suspended within the confines of an isolation chamber (5).
