Diagrammatic
representation of the high-pressure bottles (HPB) in configuration of
samples filling (Tamburini et al. 2003). The filling valve is set off by the scientist on
board the ship. When the filling valve is opened, the natural
hydrostatic pressure pushes down the floating piston and the seawater
enters into the upper chamber of 2 HPBs. The distilled water is
flushed out from the lower chamber of the syringes to the exhaust
tanks, through a nozzle that acts as an hydraulic brake (Bianchi et
al., 1999b). During retrieval, hydrostatic pressure is maintained
thanks to a check valve that avoided any decompression within the
"high pressure" HPB, in contrast to the "decompressed"
HPB that were devoid of check valve.
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