Catalysis, although not directly noticeable, is omnipresent in our daily lives. More than 80% of the objects around us contain compounds from the chemical or biotech industry, 90% of which were made by catalytic processes. Thus, catalysis participates in the responses to all the major societal issues of today such as food, health, access to energy or drinking water, transport, communications, to name but a few.

Moreover, in the context of reducing the environmental impacts of human industrial activities, the use of renewable resources in place of fossil resources has become a major issue. The development of new catalytic processes using bio-based raw materials is therefore crucial.

These developments still require the application of an experimental iterative procedure of the type “trial and error” through the chemical or biological synthesis of active species, their characterisation by a variety of analytical techniques, and then by the implementation of catalysts in response. The detailed analysis of the data from these 3 steps allows us to propose the next generation of catalyst in a process of continuous optimisation.

The main objective of the SmartDigiCat Chair (SmartDigital Catalysis or Smart Digital Catalyst) is to develop an innovative approach combining high-speed catalytic screening to accelerate the acquisition of experimental data, theoretical chemistry to improve predictions of catalyst performance, humanities and social sciences to measure the impacts of developed processes and artificial intelligence to reduce the time it took to analyse mass data. In the end, the project will lead to more rapidly optimised, safer and more environmentally friendly catalytic processes. As part of this chair, this approach will be extended to other important sectors of the industry such as materials and formulation.

Drawing on exceptional and unique tools at our disposal, such as the REALCAT high-speed catalytic screening platform, housed on our premises, this chair is led by Professor Sébastien Paul, head of the VAALBIO team at the Catalysis and Solid State Chemistry Unit (Unité de Catalyse and Chimie du Solide UCCS – UMR CNRS 8181), with its main partners: the CRIStAL laboratory (UMR CNRS 9189), INRIA and SOLVAY, HORIBA and TEAMCAT SOLUTIONS.

The SmartDigiCat Chair has a total budget in excess of €2 million over 3.5 years. It receives a contribution of €300k from the MEL and 100k from the I-Site ULNE. The chair will train in digital catalysis 4 PhD students, 2 research engineers, 3 post-doctoral researchers and 5 Master’s students.