Mostly 3D printed chemical synthesis robot

Dhanalakshmi Vadivel; Diego Savio Branciforti; Othman Kerroumi; Marco Dondi; Daniele Dondi

doi:10.1016/j.ohx.2022.e00310

Mostly 3D printed chemical synthesis robot

HardwareX. 2022 Apr 22:11:e00310. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2022.e00310. eCollection 2022 Apr.

Authors

Dhanalakshmi Vadivel^{1

2}, Diego Savio Branciforti¹, Othman Kerroumi¹, Marco Dondi¹, Daniele Dondi^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Pavia, Viale Taramelli 12, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
² INFN, Sezione di Pavia, Via Agostino Bassi, 6 - 27100 Pavia, Italy.

Abstract

Thanks to the current technology derived from the open-source world of 3D printers, it is conceivable to automate some laboratory activities remotely. In fact, simple operations, such as mixing liquids or solutions, stirring, heating and sampling to control the reaction course can be easily implemented. The idea of automating the chemical laboratory would have immediate advantages, for example in terms of safety. The operators will be able to remotely control the machines and in case of handling dangerous material or accidents, there would only be damage to the hardware components. Many of the process parameters can also be read with low-cost probes and devices that can be easily interfaced with microprocessors. We include for example, but not limited to, temperature, pH, redox potential, electrochemical measurements in general or the use of probes for specific analytes. In this work we wish to present our liquid sampling station able to control up to 6 reagents and a temperature controlled chemical reactor. The workstation can be used graphically with an intuitive interface written in Python. The control program is structured to have modularity and contains a built-in programming language to control the interfaces.

Keywords: 3D printing; Chemistry; Electrode interface; Hotplate interface; Open-source hardware; Python; Raspberry Pi 3; Robot; pH.