Design and construction of a fraction collector for liquid chromatography

Abstract

The aim of this work is to design and implement a fraction collector for liquid chromatography, a chemical method to separate the components of a mixture. A fraction collector is a piece of equipment that automatically collects each of the recovered fractions. The collector´s CAD model (Computer Assisted Design), based on a Cartesian-type system, is developed in Autodesk's FUSION360 software, in which a stress and strain study is also carried out using finite element analysis to rule out any possible structural failure. Subsequently, for its implementation, the different components of the designed CAD model were built using 3D printing. The developed system takes as input variables the number of samples to collect and the time that must elapse before changing the head to the next tube to collect the next sample. For this, a control system is implemented using the Arduino uno development board, which controls the movement in the X and Y axes of the Cartesian system through two stepper motors, as well as the user interface that consists of an LCD screen and a group of buttons that allow you to set the operating parameters and visualize the status of the equipment. The equipment designed has shown functionality like that of commercial equipment with basic characteristics, which allows obtaining precise samples efficiently and at a lower cost.