Sustainable Innovation

On September 19, Jovana Milenović presented the topic of Sustainable Innovation using the example of the Materials Innovation Factor (MIF). MIF is a research facility that combines multidisciplinary knowledge in chemistry, physics, engineering and biology, enabling researchers and companies to work together on innovative solutions for materials that are environmentally sustainable and adapted to the needs of industry. This facility provides access to the latest technologies for material design, synthesis and analysis, enabling faster and more efficient development of new products and technologies.

On that occasion, she pointed out that researchers at the University of Liverpool have built an AI-assistant to guide laboratory chemists to find new, cheaper ways to make organic molecules. In practice, this software tool led the team to discover highly effective iridium-free catalyst formulations in a sequence of 107 experiments – still a significant number, but a small fraction of the 4500 possible reaction combinations that were available. This method should be transferable to any chemical reactions where it is possible to compute relevant physical properties, or descriptors, to guide the optimization process.