The Spanish Platform for Modelling, Simulation and Optimization Technologies in a Digital Environment (PET MSO-ED), the Spanish Technological and Innovation Platform for Sustainable Chemistry (SusChem-Spain) and the Spanish Platform for Advanced Materials and Nanomaterials (Materplat) held yesterday, July 7, 2021, the conference “Artificial Intelligence in the discovery of intelligent materials and in the improvement of processes in the chemical industry” that brought together more than a hundred attendees.
The conference, introduced and moderated by Dr. Peregrina Quintela, Professor of Applied Mathematics (USC) and President of PETMSO-ED, pursued the objective of making known how artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, big data or data mining can be applied to determine compositions of materials that maximize performance for a specific application, optimization of synthesis parameters, minimizing defects in the manufacture and processing of materials or to predict properties of new materials. In addition, during the session, it was revealed how the incorporation of all these technologies is changing the way in which companies approach the R&D process, since it allows to shorten the time and costs of experimentation, having previously carried out computer simulations that guarantee that a certain process or a specific molecule have a greater chance of success. In short, this technology improves the efficiency of R&D processes.
During the session, various practical experiences of the application of these methodologies by research centers and companies in areas such as the design of lubricants (Dr. Roi Naveiro, ICMAT-CSIC), materials for energy storage (Dr. Javier Carrasco, CIC energiGUNE), porous materials (Dr. Maciej Haranczyk, IMDEA Materials), monitoring of reverse osmosis systems (Dr. Guillem Gilabert-Oriol, DuPont Water Solutions), anti-caking agents for gas hydrates (Dr. Mónica de Mier, NextMOL ) or fuels and polyolefins (Dr. Marco Bernabei, Repsol). The session concluded with an extensive discussion in which the attendees had the opportunity to directly raise their issues and points of view. All the speakers concluded that in a couple of years we will see how artificial intelligence will be common in industrial companies and how, thanks to its increasing use, we will achieve that double ecological and digital transition that the European green pact aspires to.
The day was closed by the manager of Materplat, Dr. Eduardo Troche, and the Technical Secretary of SusChem-Spain, Dr. Cristina González.
