Mobilefuge: A low-cost, portable, open source, 3D-printed centrifuge that can be powered by a mobile phone

Abstract

Background: A centrifuge is an essential piece of equipment for several biology and diagnostic applications such as pelleting cells and purifying nucleic acids, etc. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest for low-cost centrifuges that are alternatives to the commercially available centrifuges. In this article, we present a low-cost, open-source, 3D printed centrifuge (mobilefuge) that is portable, robust, stable, safe, easy to build and operate. Methods: The mobilefuge was designed such that it doesn't require soldering or programming skills and can be built without any specialised equipment yet practical enough for high throughput use. More importantly, the mobilefuge can be powered from widely available 5V USB ports, including mobile phones and associated power supplies. This allows the mobilefuge to be used even in off-grid and resource limited settings. Results: Performance of the mobilefuge is demonstrated by separating silica particles are from a suspension consisting of water and “glassmilk”. This separation process is one of the crucial steps in nucleic-acid amplification assays for reliable, low-cost diagnostic applications such as SARS-CoV2. Conclusions: We believe that beyond the nucleic-acid assays, the mobilefuge can have several applications as a microcentrifuge in the field of biomedical research and diagnostics.