Microelectronics transform well plate for high-throughput experimentation

A combined team of chemists and nano-scientists at Cornell University has developed a wireless microelectronic device powered by light that can convert a well plate into an array of small electrochemical reactors.

Their paper is published in the journal Nature. Thomas O’Brien and Alastair Lennox, with the University of Lausanne, have published a News and Views piece in the same journal issue, outlining the work done by the team on this new effort.

Over the past several years, chemists have been finding new ways to drive organic reactions using electricity, but the method still faces a problem with conducting high-throughput experiments. Trying to conduct multiple experiments with the same equipment requires a lot of electrodes and wires. Working with a 384 well plate, the researchers note, requires 768 electrodes and 768 wires, which all must be connected to a power source.

In 2021, some of the members of the current team worked with colleagues at Merck looking for a solution. They built a reactor that could carry out 24 electrochemical reactions at the same time using ribbon cables instead of wires. It was better, they noted, but not by much. That led them to take an entirely new approach—powering a similar type of reactor device using light instead of electricity. The result was a wireless reactor device powered by light and capable of using well plates of virtually any size.

To make the new device, the research team used proven solar-cell technology to collect light and turn it into electricity. Each cell on a panel was used to power one reactor positioned just below it. The team calls the tiny individual interfaces small photo-electronics for electrochemical synthesis (SPECS). Because each of the SPECS units operates individually, the reactor device can be custom built, with each well carrying out a unique chemical reaction.

The team tested the new device using known reactions but has switched now to using it to explore new chemistry. They expect the device to speed up the pace of electrochemical reaction research.

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