An Orchestrated Laboratory using Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Innovation in Chemistry

Artificial intelligence is being a revolution in technology for daily life and technical applications. Nowadays algorithms can predict consumers' habits and even answer questions with incredible accuracy. The impact of this technology is also observed on research and a developpement of chemical synthesis and other applications on the chemistry field. Particularly in the case of chemical formulation these algorithms can be used to accelerate and reduce the number of experiences necessary to explore formulation phase diagrams. Design of experiments combined with Bayesian optimization could help to explore and understand multivariable space which can be extremely complex to understand only using the human brain. In this particular case we use a robotic platform to perform the experiments, combined with artificial intelligence algorithms that will predict the experience to perform and will feed and optimize the prediction models based on the results obtained. The case that we choose for the study is a formulation for Home and Personal Care, based on surfactants, polymers and salts to optimize viscosity of the shampoos. The complexity of the interactions between the components from the formulation needs to be coupled with the scientific knowledge to ensure the optimization with good accuracy. It means that artificial intelligence will not be able to replace humans but is definitely a tool to accelerate research in a complementary interaction.