New ‘AI chemist’ could autonomously make oxygen from ice on Mars
Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) may have made a breakthrough discovery that could make long-term colonization of planets like Mars possible. Using a specially designed artificial intelligence (AI) “chemist,” they have found a way to rapidly prototype and synthesize oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts that could be used to generate free oxygen from ice deposits on the Red Planet. The new process could also complete the work in situ on Mars without human intervention and reduce the need for Earth-supplied resources.
AI-powered terraforming
Our species has long dreamed about traveling the stars and settling on other planets. And with significant advancements in space travel and the labors of Elon Musk and SpaceX, that dream has never seemed closer. But, one of the significant hurdles to overcome is the lack of essential chemicals, like oxygen, to enable long-term survival in an alien world.
One solution is to make oxygen from the limited atmosphere of Mars, like NASA’s MOXIE, but with recent discoveries of ice deposits on Mars, many have speculated that this could be used as a raw resource to help produce life-preserving oxygen by decomposing the frozen water into its constituent parts. This can be done through electrochemical water oxidation powered by solar energy and OERs. If this could be done on Mars, using Martin resources, it would make the process far more sustainable.
So, to this end, a team of scientists led by Professors Lou Yi, Jiang Jun, and Shang Weiwei from USTC of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed a robotic “AI chemist” that can automatically synthesize and optimize OER catalysts from Martian meteorites. This breakthrough technology tackles the problem of catalyst optimization and has immense potential for future research in this area.
“The AI chemist innovatively synthesizes OER catalyst using Martian material based on interdisciplinary cooperation,” explained Prof. Lou Yi, the team’s leading scientist.
The AI chemist begins each experimental cycle by analyzing the elemental composition of target Martian ores using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). It then proceeds to perform a series of pretreatments on the ores, which involve weighing them in the solid-dispensing workstation, preparing feedstock solutions in the liquid-dispensing workstation, separating them from the liquid using a centrifugation workstation and solidifying them in the dryer workstation.
Any metal hydroxides obtained are then processed with Nafion adhesive to form a working electrode, which is then used for testing the OER at the electrochemical workstation. The testing data is sent to the AI chemist’s computational system in real-time for machine learning (ML) processing.
The AI chemist can then use quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics simulations to analyze 30,000 high-entropy hydroxides with different elemental ratios. It then calculates their OER catalytic activities using density functional theory. From there, the team explains, simulation data is used to train a neural network model that can quickly predict the activity of catalysts with different elemental compositions.
Finally, the Ai chemist’s “brain” uses Bayesian optimization to predict the combination of Martian ores required to synthesize the optimal OER catalyst. So far, the AI chemist has developed a catalyst using five types of Martian meteorites that can continuously produce oxygen without any degradation at -34.6°F (-37°C), similar to Mars’s temperature.
The team is developing the AI chemist as a versatile experimental platform for various chemical syntheses, eliminating human intervention.
AI for life support
“In the future, humans can establish an oxygen factory on Mars with the assistance of an AI chemist,” said Jun. The team explained that it only takes 15 hours of solar irradiation to produce enough oxygen for human survival. “This breakthrough technology brings us one step closer to achieving our dream of living on Mars,” he added.
Source: Interesting Engineering
New ‘AI chemist’ could autonomously make oxygen from ice on Mars