High-performance colorimeter with an electronic bubble gate for use in miniaturized continuous-flow analyzers.

We describe a high-performance colorimeter with an electronic bubble gate for use with miniaturized continuous-flow analyzers. The colorimeter has a flow-through cuvette with optically flat quartz windows that allows a bubbled stream to pass freely without any breakup or retention of bubbles. The fluid volume in the light path is only 1.8 mul. The electronic bubble gate selectively removes that portion of the photodector signal produced by the air bubbles passing through the flow cell and allows that portion of the signal attributable to the fluid segment to pass to the recorder. The colorimeter is easy to use, rugged, inexpensive, and requires minimal adjustments.