The Mass Spectrometer Filter 3D Printed in Just a Few Hours

At MIT, a team of researchers led by Fernando Velásquez-García has developed a 3D printed filter for a mass spectrometer. This device, designed to detect molecular structures by measuring their mass, has traditionally been bulky, fragile and, because of its size, difficult to deploy in certain areas. Using photopolymerization and a heat-resistant glass-ceramic resin, they succeeded in producing the device’s filter, more commonly known as a quadrupole. Thanks to additive manufacturing, the team were able to considerably reduce the filter’s production time, cost and weight.

Mass spectrometry was developed in the 1900s and was originally used to identify and separate the isotopes of a chemical element. Since then, the technique has been perfected and is now used in many scientific fields, including chemistry, physics, biology and geology. A spectrometer is made up of four parts, including the analyzer capable of separating the ions, either with a high-resolution or low-resolution analyzer. In the latter case, a quadrupole is used, i.e. a component that enables energy transfer. This is the component designed by additive manufacturing in just a few hours and for just a few dollars, compared with the traditional weeks and thousands of dollars.

Additive manufacturing makes it possible to imagine a wide range of shapes and iterations

A 3D Printed Spectrometer Filter

The component is said to have been 3D printed using a resin machine: the team explains that they used a glass-ceramic resin cured layer by layer by several LEDs. The 3D printer produces the miniaturized quadrupole in a single operation, eliminating the assembly steps that can lead to defects and thus reduce the quality of the component.