A QUARTZ CRYSTAL VISCOSITY SENSOR FOR MONITORING COAGULATION REACTION AND ITS APPLICATION TO A MULTICHANNEL COAGULATION DETECTOR

A quartz crystal viscosity sensor was applied to a coagulation reaction monitoring system. The system consists of 16 oscillating circuits, a channel selector, a frequency counter, a temperature controller and a microcomputer. The system is named the Quartz Chemical Analyzer (QCA). AT-cut quartz crystals (9 MHz) were used as viscosity detectors and were attached to a cell in order to expose only one side of the quartz plate. The system was applied to the detection of the blood coagulation factors VIII (F VIII) and IX (F IX). The activity of these factors was assayed by a single-stage method. A linear relationship was obtained in a double-logarithmic diagram of concentration versus coagulation time with respect to F VIII and F IX in the range 0.05-0.4 unit cm-3 and 0.025-0.2 unit cm-3, respectively.