Boehringer Mannheim Gmbh

Andreas Marschall

Hans-Erich Wilk

Erich Schneider

Rolf Lerch

Peter Vogel

Manfred Bleisteiner

The invention concerns a device and its use for separating plasma from whole blood by means of a fibre-containing layer which contains an erythrocyte-aggregating substance and is characterized in that the fibre-containing layer contains glass fibres which are coated with polyvinyl alcohol or with polyvinyl alcohol/polyvinyl acetate. The invention also concerns a test carrier for the determination of a blood component as well as a process for separation from whole blood in which the device according to the present invention is used.

Device and its use for the separation of plasma from whole blood

Test carrier for the analytical determination of a constituent of a sample fluid by a specific binding reaction between two binding partners having biological affinity. A plurality of test layers is so disposed that they are wetted successively by the fluid and form a fluid transport path, in which one of the test layers is a fixing layer (18) which is a porous carrier matrix. The first of the two binding partners is fixed to the latter. The fluid containing the second binding partner flows through the fixing layer (18), at right angles to its surface, on the test carrier (10). A largely complete binding reaction in an extraordinarily short time is achieved during the flow through the preferably very thin fixing layer (18) by the fact that a microporous plastics layer with a pore size P of at least 0.01 pm is used as the carrier matrix, and at the same time the size D of the second binding partner and the pore size P of the plastics layer are adjusted to one another so that the pore size P is at least twice and at most ten times as great as the size D of the second binding partner.

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Mannheim, Germany

Andreas Marschall