Cat+
Swiss Cat+ West Hub, state of the art digital laboratory technologies
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Swiss Cat+ is a data-driven automated infrastructure for catalysts discovery and optimization and is one of four projects directly financed by the ETH-Rat: https://swisscatplus.ch/
The Cat+ West Hub (EPFL) focuses on homogeneous catalysis whereas the Cat+ East Hub (ETHZ) concentrates on heterogeneous catalysis.
The development plan of Swiss Cat+ West Hub consists of acquiring:
- Robotic platforms to synthesize homogeneous catalysts according to state-of-the-art methods: organometallic chemistry, complex formation, and characterization.
- High throughput experimentation synthetic platforms to prepare (solid and liquid dispensing), react (stirring, shaking, heating, cooling, illuminating, pressurizing …) and work up (liquid-liquid separation, filtration …) homogeneous catalytic reactions: Hydrogenation, carbonylation, hydroformylation, metathesis, cross-couplings, asymmetric catalysis …
- High throughput analytical platform (LC, LC-PREP, SQ-MS, IM-Q-TOF, MIR & FIR FT-IR, Chiral-SFC, 400 MHz NMR, desktop NMR … ) for structural elucidation and measurement of reaction outputs. The Hub also has access to EPFL core lab facilities, including an advanced LC-MS platform and solid-state DNP-NMR.
- Complete integration at the sample and data level: Use of robotic collaborative arms and supplier software integration.
- An open platform for collaboration with leading Artificial Intelligence companies and “in-house developed” algorithms to support data analysis and design of experiments.
Development of Digital Laboratory Technologies
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Solid sampling
Automation of high-throughput synthetic chemistry
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Lab automation
Sample transfer by robots
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Data and IT structure
Generation, synchronisation and analysis of experimental data
Interview of Florian de Nanteuil by RTS during the EPFL Open Days of 29-30 April 2023 (minute 1:57, in French): A l’EPFL, l’intelligence artificielle au service de la recherche