A Novel Approach to Detecting Heavy Metals With 3D printing

Heavy metal poisoning still remains a major problem in the United States with millions of reported cases of lead poisoning each year. In order to develop a solution to this problem, an electrochemical sensing apparatus was constructed in order to measure low concentrations of heavy metals in solution. Due to the design of this apparatus, it was believed to be more sensitive than more standard techniques that are utilized in electrochemical laboratories. With this device, we were able to detect lead and cadmium as low as 2-4 ppb in both an ultrapure and tap water matrix.