Literally working night and day, a robot at the University of Liverpool performed 688 experiments over eight days to find the best way to extract hydrogen gas from water.
Hydrogen gas is a potential vehicle fuel and has hundreds of industrial applications.
Rather than designing a specialized robot, a pair of human chemists at the university mounted a conventional robotic arm on a mobile base and fitted it with grippers, sample trays, and other gadgets and programmed it to operate various lab machines, including a gas chromatograph.
The robot ran the 688 tests 1,000 times faster than a human researcher could have, the developers estimate.
The mechanical scientist finished with a process that pulls six times more hydrogen from a given volume of water than the process it was given to start. It’s not a viable application, however, because the process consumes one of the chemicals it uses.
The robot, which the researchers call a “proof of concept,” could be outfitted with more chemistry information and greater computing power so it can make better decisions as it experiments.
The developers hope to sell their robotic lab tech to other chemists.
TRENDPOST: The combination of artificial intelligence, computers that learn from experience, and ever-increasing computer power will create a structure of innovation, discoveries, and scientific advances that will outpace our ability to assimilate change even more than today’s already has.
by Bennett Daviss
