Printed Analytical Labware and Sample-Handling Devices: Contamination, Sorption, Cleanliness and Measurement Bias

Additively manufactured labware can compress design-to-use time, integrate fluid paths and enable geometries that are impractical in conventional glass, fluoropolymer or machined components. In analytical chemistry, however, a printed vessel, manifold, extraction element or sample-transfer device becomes part of the measurement system as soon as the sample contacts it. The resulting error can be positive, through leaching, particles, residual processing chemicals or carry-over, or negative, through adsorption, absorption, partitioning, precipitation, evaporation or analyte retention in dead volume and roughness. A device can therefore be mechanically sound and dimensionally accurate while still producing a biased analytical result. This review develops a qualification framework for vat-photopolymerised and other polymeric printed analytical labware with emphasis on the mechanisms that change measured concentration, recovery, blank level, selectivity or precision. It distinguishes chemical compatibility from analytical compatibility; separates contamination, sorption and geometry-driven transport; treats cleaning and conditioning as controlled transformations of the wetted surface; and defines technique-specific controls for trace elemental analysis, chromatography and mass spectrometry, optical assays, electrochemical measurements and flow-based sample preparation. Recent evidence shows both the opportunity and the boundary: photopolymer prints can support practical sub-ppm elemental work under defined conditions, yet resin- and process-derived species can preclude particular analytes or ultra-trace use, and nitric-acid exposure can mobilise metals in strongly material-dependent ways. Qualification must therefore be analyte-, matrix-, concentration-, solvent-, time- and process-specific. A non-compensatory gate architecture is proposed in which blank contamination, recovery, carry-over, dimensional/flow stability and cleaning reproducibility must each pass independently before a printed device is accepted for an analytical method.

ER-282 · Version 0.3.