The researchers estimate it would have taken a human scientist around 2,000 years to find that "best" catalyst using conventional trial-and-error techniques. However, they also noted that AI still needs the guidance of human scientists. The team now plans to test if their AI chemist can operate under Martian conditions other than temperature, such as atmospheric composition, air density, humidity, and gravity. The findings were detailed in the journal Nature Synthesis.
Key takeaways:
- An AI-powered robot chemist synthesized compounds that could be used to generate oxygen from water using meteorites from Mars.
- The AI chemist used a robot arm to collect samples from the Martian meteorites, then it employed a laser to scan the ore and calculated more than 3.7 million molecules it could make from six different metallic elements in the rocks.
- Within six weeks, without any human intervention, the AI chemist selected, synthesized and tested 243 of those different molecules. The best catalyst the robot found could split water at minus 34.6 degrees F (minus 37 degrees C), the kind of cold temperature found on Mars.
- The researchers estimate it would have taken a human scientist something like 2,000 years to find that "best" catalyst using conventional trial-and-error techniques.