Low cost rotating disk electrode built using accessible hand tools and 3D printing

Rotating disk electrodes (RDEs) are ubiquitous among electrochemistry labs for their versatility. They serve to mitigate the mass transport limitations in experiments through hydrodynamic control. Commercially available RDEs cost thousands of USD ($) making them unaffordable for many lower budget research groups or education institutions. Affordable designs exist in literature to make these but precision machined parts are required. The presented prototype is fabricated using a 3D printed design and common hand tools, providing clean and reproducible data. This facilitates production in a wider range of environments for research and education applications, as is ideal in the South African context in which it was designed.