Alpha test 1 robotic platform for traditional Chinese medicine pretreatment: Automated modular integration and quality control applications

Sample pretreatment plays an important role in analytical performance, but it is often the rate-limiting step in scientific research. With the development of automation technology, automated sample preparation has become a powerful tool for liberating labor and improving efficiency. In this study, the automatic pretreatment of traditional Chinese medicine test was realized by module combination, and an intelligent robotic platform Alpha Test 1 was developed to decompose the complex preparation method of traditional Chinese medicine into automatic modular components. It includes a multi-channel liquid feeding device, an extraction bottle device, a reflux condensing pipe ring, a reflux extraction and a water bath extraction device. Each module is connected through modular combinations such as liquid injection control, intelligent sorting, and water bath condensation, and the difficulty of manual operation is gradually tackled to achieve the goal of replacing manual labor in the pretreatment process. We selected two representative traditional Chinese medicines, Xianglian Pills and Erzhi Pills, to explore their application in the testing of traditional Chinese medicine. The results of Alpha Test 1 in the identification and content determination met the requirements of Chinese Pharmacopoeia, and the operation was simple, rapid and efficient compared with the manual pretreatment method. This method can meet the requirements of daily laboratory testing and provide technical support for the quality control evaluation and testing of traditional Chinese medicine.