LEGO MINDSTORMS Fraction Collector: A Low-Cost Tool for a Preparative High-Performance Liquid Chromatography System

Preparative high-performance liquid chromatographic (prep-HPLC) systems are used in many research schemes including purifying products from reaction mixtures, fractionating natural product extracts, and isolating compounds. Manual fraction collection from a prep-HPLC is a common method; however, it often lacks the reproducibility of automated fraction collectors due to human error. Automated fraction collectors for prep-HPLC systems can add thousands of dollars to the cost of prep-HPLC and are thus not always available to budgetary constrained research programs. Nevertheless, an automated fraction collector is a tremendous resource for any lab that employs prep-HPLC methods. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS pieces and easily obtained lumber and a steel C-channel, we were able to deploy an automated fraction collector for only a fraction of the cost of a commercial instrument. The programming software allows for a simple interface to create fraction collection programs tailored to individual HPLC methods. This fraction collector can be connected to any LC system and tailored to collect fractions in nearly any size or shaped container. This fraction collector was designed to provide maximum versatility and will make automated fraction collection more accessible to all researchers. The simple interface allows for quickly adapting the fraction collector method to any liquid chromatographic separation, no matter how complex.