Patent ID: 8642285

Claim:
A method for sensitive and accurate measurement of consumption or release of a gaseous analyte in a plurality of specimens, the method comprising the steps of: providing for each specimen a cuvette comprising an elongate narrow tube which is sealed at one end, substantially gas impermeable and which is at least partly transparent to measurement excitation radiation and emission radiation, the tube having a cross-sectional area of less than 2 mm 2 ; loading specimens under investigation into the cuvettes, each cuvette containing a probe which is sensitive to the gaseous analyte, placing the cuvettes with loaded specimens in a measurement holder and providing them with rapid, stable and efficient temperature control at a selected target temperature with an accuracy of at least +/−0.5° C. for the duration of measuring emission radiation of the probe; periodically directing excitation radiation at a sampling zone located at or close to the bottom of each cuvette with loaded specimen and measuring emission radiation of the probe locally within the sampling zone, and analyzing the changes in emission radiation over time for each cuvette with loaded specimen and determining on the basis of these local changes the rate of consumption or release of the gaseous analyte by each specimen.