A modular low-cost automated synthesis machine demonstrated by ring-opening metathesis polymerization

Abstract

Synthesis automatization is of vast interest as it increases the number of experiments, reproducibility, and in general enhances laboratory performance. This work presents a low-cost machine for automated synthesis developed with the aim of being open-science, flexible, and modular. The framework consists of a modified 3D printer that in its current setup is capable of performing up to 45 stirred batch syntheses under a controlled atmosphere with the mixing of up to five components. The automated synthesis machine is tested by performing 13 ring-opening metathesis polymerizations with a targeted degree of polymerization between 20 to 140 units in triplicates and randomized ordering. The polymerizations are verified by ATR-FTIR, ¹H-NMR, and GPC, where all 39 polymerizations resulted in the expected molecular mass with dispersities between 1.20 and 1.61.