A low-cost, high-sensitivity 3D printed fluorescence detector†

Fluorescence methods have distinct advantages over traditional absorbance methods including greater sensitivity, improved detection limits, and selectivity. Unfortunately, the cost of typical, commercially available fluorescence detectors is beyond what some industrial and research laboratories can afford or maintain. Having a relatively low-cost, simple to use, and high-sensitivity fluorescence detector would be very beneficial. The aim of this research is to develop a 3D printed flow through fluorescence detector that does not require complex optics or an expensive excitation source and has comparable performance to a commercial detector. The detector presented here was designed to work with nicotinamide-based methods developed in previous research; however, by simply changing the excitation and emission filters this detector can be adapted to other applications. Several evaluation studies were performed where the relative signal-to-noise ratio, detection limits, accuracy, and precision results for the 3D printed detector were compared to those of a commercial detector using nicotinamide as the analyte. Overall, the detector performed comparably or better than a commercial detector for these metrics.