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

Synthesis automatization is of vast interest as it increases the number of experiments, reproducibility, and in general enhances laboratory performance. 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, 1 H-NMR, and GPC, where all 39 polymerizations resulted in the expected molecular mass with dispersities between 1.20 and 1.61.