Patent ID: 7789552

Claim:
A stirring mechanism for noninvasive mixing of liquid and particulate matter held in a container, comprising: a support configured to receive the container; a drive mechanism operatively coupled to the support to impart to the container a non-circular path of motion that induces substantially uniform mixing of the liquid and the particulate matter held in the container; the support including a coupling feature and the drive mechanism including a drive feature that cooperates with the coupling feature of the support to produce directional components of the non-circular path of motion, the directional components activating in the liquid a vortex that is capable of generating sufficient lift of the particulate matter and linear motion of an amount sufficient to introduce into the vortex a degree of chaos that thoroughly mixes the particulate matter in the liquid; a particulate matter-detecting sensor; and a sample conduit that is capable of transmitting to the particulate matter-detecting sensor the liquid thoroughly mixed with particulate matter.