- Expensive analyzers that are no longer being made are being reborn as automated systems.

- Automation easily handles highly dangerous and difficult catalyst experiments.

- An innovative method has been developed to accelerate catalyst research and gather reliable data on catalyst development

The catalyst experiment always involves time-consuming and labor-intensive simple and repetitive work that extends into overtime and weekends. A remarkable breakthrough by a Korean research team has rendered the previous methods obsolete, as experiments can now be conducted in a safer and smarter manner.

The research team led by Dr. Youn Min Hye, from the Carbon Conversion Research Lab at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), along with President Yi Chang-keun, has developed a smart lab. This lab automates the entire process of catalyst development, from synthesis and analysis to reaction. Unmanned experiments can enhance research productivity.

The most challenging part of catalyst research is scaling up the process development. When an optimized catalyst created in the lab is scaled up, various outcomes can result from factors such as reactor types, reaction conditions, heat removal methods, and fabrication techniques. Therefore, a range of process conditions must be carefully checked, which will require extra personnel, equipment, and expense. The worse may become the worst when a liquid hydrocarbon is converted from gases under high temperature and high pressure. Furthermore, inexperienced or new researchers may make errors, and mistakes in data input can occur, which can lower the quality of research.

To address these problems, the research team has developed a smart laboratory where unmanned experiments for catalyst structural analysis, sampling, and by-product analysis are conducted in an automated environment, including automated data collection. Moreover the smart lab is an advanced laboratory that utilizes artificial intelligence.

The automated analysis system makes unmanned XRD analysis and data collection possible. The older XRD machines can also be automated. This unmanned operation and automated analysis can maximize research efficiency and productivity. In addition, the reactor's sampling system is automated to ensure safety when handling the high pressures and temperatures, which could otherwise be difficult and dangerous, leading to suffocation and burns.

Those accumulated data from automated analysis and evaluation are organizationally managed in the sampling QR management program, enhancing the credibility and efficiency of catalyst research. The automatically collected and processed credible data become an insightful database.

This automated research process is connected to a database that can manage separate data in a centralized and integrated manner, improving research efficiency and overcoming problems associated with research notes.

Dr. Youn Min Hye highlights, "Current lab robots typically take over repetitive tasks from humans. But in a smart laboratory, robots are used for dangerous and difficult experiments. Further data collection is automated to create an AI-powered database in a secure and efficient research environment. Virtual simulations in a smart lab using real data modeling will revolutionize research and help overcome climate crises.”

The research has received funding from the KIER, and the title of the research is "Building a Smart Laboratory for Development of Innovative CCU Catalytic Process" The developed automation system is planned to be distributed to other research institutes in order to upgrade the national R&D platform and overcome research difficulties.