Heterogeneous catalysis is an example of a complex materials function, governed by an intricate interplay of several processes, e.g., the different surface chemical reactions, and the dynamic re-structuring of the catalyst material at reaction conditions. Modelling the full catalytic progression via first-principles statistical mechanics is impractical, if not impossible. Instead, we show here how a tailored artificial-intelligence approach can be applied, even to a small number of materials, to model catalysis and determine the key descriptive parameters (materials genes) reflecting the processes that trigger, facilitate, or hinder catalyst performance. We start from a consistent experimental set of clean data, containing nine vanadium-based oxidation catalysts. These materials were synthesized, fully characterized, and tested according to standardized protocols. By applying the symbolic-regression SISSO approach, we identify correlations between the few most relevant materials properties and their reactivity. This approach highlights the underlying physicochemical processes, and accelerates catalyst design.
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