High-throughput experimentation strategies

Strasser, P. et al.. High throughput experimental and theoretical predictive screening of materials a comparative study of search strategies for new fuel cell anode catalysts, J. Phys. Chem. B, 107, 11013, 2003. 

For catalyst optimization using high-throughput experimentation, evolutionary strategies have been shown to be very effective if vast parameter spaces (many nominal catalyst components) have to be searched for the optimal catalyst composition. The concept of the algorithm has been described in detail by Wolf et al. [21], some application examples are discussed by Rodemerck et al. [22] and Holena [23]. 

It is obvious that the above-mentioned strategies offer the possibility to develop new catalysts on the basis of the huge amount of already existing knowledge on OCM catalysts and descriptors of the individual elementary reaction steps. However, they suffer from not sufficient data sets, that is, either literature data were not consistently measured or microkinetic data have not yet been measvued. Here, high-throughput experimentation may be helpful to provide appropriate data sets. 

Nowadays the accepted research strategy in heterogeneous catalysis follows a pyramidal hierarchy of four development scales. High throughput experimentation, with hundreds of samples in the mg range tested in rather short time periods, is often the basis of the identification of new leads or new promoters. Clariant has dedicated a specialized laboratory to this important task of lead identification and promoter... 

Ohrenberg, A., Torne,C., Schuppert, A. and Knab, B. (2005). Application of data mining and evolutionary optimization in catalyst discovery and high-throughput experimentation — Techniques, strategies, and software, QSAR Comb. ScL, 24, 29-37. 

The above example illustrates the shortcomings of a brute-force attack, but a variation of it is still one of the most widely used strategies for the development of heterogeneous catalysts in practice. By using a combinatorial chemistry approach with completely automated, high-throughput experimentation equipment, one can synthesize and test enormous libraries of catalysts for their catalytic activity for a specific reaction. A good example is the search for advanced water gas shift catalysts, in which Yaccato et al. have synthesized over 50 000 catalysts and... 

Cawse JN (2001) Experimental strategies for combinatorial and high-throughput materials development. Acc Chem Res 34 213-221... 

---