The Utilisation of Stereolithography Rapid Prototyping, to drive the design and testing of a new Chromatographic technique, Dynamic Field Gradient Focusing (DFGF).

In developing new analytical instruments and in particular chromatography instrumentation there is a need to modify or manufacture components to perform experiments and initiate the innovation. Usually this means anything from ordering bespoke parts to fabricating components and devices in house. At the University of Liverpool the development of a new technique in chromatography, Dynamic Gradient Field Focusing (DFGF), is moving forward with the aid of some of the latest advances in Stereolithography Rapid Prototyping. With this method of design improvement the testing of various designs and configurations has led to a system coming to fruition in a reduced time frame and at a very low cost. Utilising this approach has catalysed the emergence of a new instrumentation platform.

Experimental

Rapid prototyping (RP) is a process developed in the 1980’s as a means of producing prototypes or models1. As the technology has progressed RP has become the link between designs and the real world. A design drawn using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software can be interpreted into a series of layers which are then grown or sculpted to give a product, the prototype. The first rapid prototypes were simple free form cutting machines programmed by basic CAD software. There are many different types of RP devices which have been devised since then. One of these more advanced techniques is stereolithography which has been utilised for this work.