Additive Manufacturing for Electrochemical (Micro)Fluidic Platforms

The 2017 Special Issue of Interface explores some of the benefits and opportunities that modern additive manufacturing methods offer for the practice of electrochemical analysis, engineering, and energy storage. the first paper of this issue, Robert B. Channon, Maxim B. Joseph and Julie V. Macpherson, demonstrate the use of low cost additive manufacturing based on stereolithography, to create (micro) fluidic flow cells at scales that are either difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional methods. Trevor Braun and Dan Schwartz provide an article exploring the intersection of freeform patterning and electrodeposition with the use of software reconfigurable scanning electrodeposition cells. In traditional electrodeposition, the volume of the electrolyte is far larger than that of the deposited materials. The final paper by Corrie Cobb and Christine Ho demonstrates how additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping methods can improve the performance and the range of applications of electrochemical energy storage.