Mass spectrometers are extremely precise chemical analyzers that have many applications, from evaluating the safety of drinking water to detecting toxins in a patient’s blood. But building an inexpensive, portable mass spectrometer that could be deployed in remote locations remains a challenge, partly due to the difficulty of miniaturizing the vacuum pump it needs to operate at a low cost. MIT researchers utilized additive manufacturing to take a major step toward solving this problem. They 3D printed a miniature version of a type of vacuum pump, known as a peristaltic…
