Patent ID: 6979569

Claim:
An apparatus for at least one of particle and chemical analysis of reagent mixtures having a plurality of reagent-mixture components including a sample of blood, comprising: means for pumping each of a plurality of reagent-mixture components including the sample of blood in a respective stream at a respective predetermined flow rate; means for combining at least one reagent-mixture component stream into a stream of at least one other reagent-mixture component stream for mixing the plurality of reagent-mixture components into a combined reagent-mixture stream; means for forming each of a plurality of different selected reagent mixtures in the combined reagent-mixture stream by adjusting the flow rate of at least one of a plurality of reagent-mixture components in accordance with a flow-rate ratio of reagent-mixture components corresponding to each respective selected reagent mixture; and means for at least one of (i) chemically analyzing and (ii) analyzing a particle distribution of the selected reagent mixture of the combined reagent-mixture stream.