Academic researchers are replacing expensive commercial laboratory equipment with custom hardware made on low-cost 3D printers, according to reporting by Nature.
Entry-level 3D printers now sell for less than $2,500, with the cheapest machines available for about $200. Trevor Rife, a plant scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina, operates several systems in his laboratory, including a $1,200 Bambu X1C from Shenzhen-based Bambu Lab, a Prusa MINI retailing for roughly $550, and a Voron 0 assembled from a kit for a few hundred dollars. During his doctoral research in genetics, commercial automated bead dispensers for DNA extraction were too expensive for his laboratory. Rife now fabricates his own dispensers for approximately $10 each.
Rife develops equipment using Autodesk Fusion software and publishes the design files on GitHub, Thingiverse, and Printables. His shared tools include seed-counting trays, seed-sorting squares, and hole-punch adapters for tissue collection tubes. The digital files let other researchers adjust dimensions, such as hole sizes and spacing, for specific experimental setups without purchasing dedicated equipment.
At Chiba University in Japan, electrical engineer Irwansyah uses 3D printing to investigate bone conduction for hearing aids. Irwansyah modified a public magnetic resonance imaging model of a human head to produce skulls made from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. He covers the printed plastic with silicone skin analogues and attaches sensors and microphones inside the structure to evaluate how vibrations travel across the skull and test methods for blocking acoustic crosstalk between ears.
Magda Barecka, a chemical engineer at Northeastern University in Boston, builds electrochemical flow reactors to convert carbon dioxide into materials and fuels. Standard commercial flow reactors cost $6,000, but Barecka constructs functional alternatives for less than $5 each by pairing 3D-printed plates containing serpentine channels with cut copper electrodes and rubber gaskets.
