ERCAD: A Parametric Reactor Design Tool That Enables\nRapid Prototyping and Optimization of Electrochemical Reactors through\n3D Printing

The reactors are\nan essential component of electrosynthetic reactions.\nAs the electron transfer processes are heterogeneous, the reactors\nhave a significant impact on reaction outcomes. This has resulted\nin reaction reproducibility being problematic, which commercial reactors\nalleviate somewhat but are expensive and cannot be optimized or iterated\nupon. Using 3D printing, rapid prototyping of bespoke reactors should\nfacilitate investigation of the sensitivity of key reactor parameters,\nenable reactor optimization, and improved reproducibility through\nsharing of the print files. However, the bottleneck to this approach\nis the Computer Aided Design (CAD) of the reactors, which typically\nrequires specialist knowledge and training to do. This has resulted\nin 3D printing not being typically used in the field of electrosynthesis.\nHerein, we showcase the development and application of a user-friendly,\nopen-source software tool that can be used to produce Electrochemical\nReactor CAD (ERCAD) designs simply and easily by nonexperts. We demonstrate\nits use to design and print reactors for the analysis, optimization,\nscreening, and scaleup of electrosynthetic reactions. Using this parametric\ndesign tool, chemists with no design experience or skills can now\neasily create, print, test, and share their reactors.