Using Open-Source, 3D Printable Optical Hardware To Enhance Student Learning in the Instrumental Analysis Laboratory

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is a technology with near-unlimited potential for the chemical educator. However, its adoption into higher education has been limited by the dual requirements of expertise in 3D printing and 3D computer-aided design (CAD). Thus, its reported utilization in the chemistry curriculum has been within the creation of 3D models for the macroscopic visualization of molecular models and processes. With the commercialization of inexpensive 3D printers, we seek to provide a series of optical mounts and tools for use in chemical research or education by designing systems which may be mounted on a breadboard and used to construct chemical instrumentation. These designs include mounts for cylindrical lenses or mirrors with 0.5, 1, and 2 in. diameters, 0.5 in. diffraction gratings, an adjustable optical slit, cuvette holders, stepper motor (NEMA 17) adapters, and a modular, 3D printed breadboard. All designs were created using Solidworks CAD, and have been provided in Supporting Information and uploaded to in both Solidworks native format (*.SLDPRT) and a standard file exchange format for 3D objects (*.STL) format for use, modification, or collaboration. All files are released under the MIT Open-Source license (modified for Design). In comparison with commercially available products, the prototypes presented herein provide significant cost-savings, with many designs 1–2 orders of magnitude cheaper than commercial equivalents. In addition, these designs have been utilized in an upper division instrumental analysis course as students designed and constructed a visible spectrophotometer using these optical devices. Data from the resultant instrument is presented and compared with a commercially available spectrophotometer.

Simple, Portable, and Inexpensive Spectrophotometers for High Schools Lab Activity

“…However, some articles do not express this clearly. Following are the results of article classification based on light source technology and detectors used: Table 2 describe the various technologies used to develop spectrophotometers instruments, besides that construction of instrument developed also has various variations, such as the use of 3D plastic printing [15,54,57], Lego [2,9], shoe boxes [32], and wood [30]. LEDs are the most preferred alternative light source by researchers.…”

PUMA – An open‐source 3D‐printed direct vision microscope with augmented reality and spatial light modulator functions

“…Due to the wide availability of low cost 3D printers and their ability to enable rapid prototyping, 3D printing is gaining popularity in the scientific community to design and make inexpensive custom apparatus including optomechanical devices for research and teaching (see for example 1,2 ).…”

3D printing lifts the lid on black box instruments

“…The use of additive manufacturing (3D printing) in educational contexts has grown exponentially in the past several years [1][2][3]. Within the educational community, 3D printing has two primary forms: usable laboratory equipment/experiments [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], and in-class demonstrations/models, including orbitals [12,13], surfaces [14,15], molecular models [16][17][18], biological molecules [19][20][21], and data visualization [22,23]. While numerous laboratory examples have demonstrated the analytical use of 3D printing in the educational laboratory, little work has been demonstrated in the literature for analytical educational aids.…”