The presence of a dataset that covers a parametric space of materials and process conditions in a process-consistent manner is essential for the realization of catalyst informatics. Here, an important piece of progress is demonstrated for the oxidative coupling of methane. A high-throughput screening instrument is developed for enabling an automatic performance evaluation of 20 catalysts in 216 reaction conditions. This affords an oxidative coupling of methane dataset comprised of 12 708 data points for 59 catalysts in three successive operations. Based on a variety of data visualization analysis, important insights into catalysis and catalyst design are successfully extracted. In particular, the simultaneous optimization of the catalyst and reactor design is found to be essential for improving the C2 yield. The consistent dataset allows the accurate prediction of the C2 yield with the aid of nonlinear supervised machine learning.

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We used STM to observe visible light photo-oxidation reactions of formic acid on the ordered lattice-work structure of a TiO(2)(001) surface for the first time. The nanostructured surface makes the band gap significantly smaller than 3.0 eV only at the surface layer, and the surface state of the crystal enables a visible light response.

Catalysis research is on the verge of experiencing a paradigm shift regarding how catalysts are designed and characterized due to the rise of catalyst informatics. The details of catalyst informatics are reviewed where the following three key concepts are proposed: catalyst data, catalyst data to catalyst design via data science, and catalyst platform. Additionally, progress and opportunities within catalyst informatics are explored and introduced. If the field of catalyst informatics grows in the appropriate manner, the methods and approaches taken for catalyst design would be fundamentally altered, leading towards great advancement within catalysis research.

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Dinucleation of TiCl4 on the MgCl2 (100) surface has been conventionally believed as the origin of the stereospecificity of heterogeneous Ziegler‐Natta catalysts for propylene polymerization, while the MgCl2 (110) surface has been regarded as non‐stereoselective in the absence of organic donors. Based on periodic density functional calculations, we propose a new isospecific Ti dinuclear species on the MgCl2 (110) surface, which is formed as a result of reduction of Ti from 4+ to 3+. The new species closely resembles the dinuclear species on the (100) surface, but two Ti ions are obliquely stacked along the (110) surface through Cl bridges. The results address the importance of the reduction and re‐distribution of surface Ti species after contacting with cocatalysts in considering the origin of the stereospecificity.magnified image

In propylene polymerization with MgCl(2) -supported Ziegler-Natta catalysts, it is known that the reduction of TiCl(4) with alkylaluminum generates Ti(3+) active species, and at the same time, leads to the growth of TiCl(x) aggregates. In this study, the aggregation states of the Ti species were controlled by altering the Ti content in a TiCl(3) /MgCl(2) model catalyst prepared from a TiCl(3)  · 3C(5) H(5) N complex. It is discovered that all the Ti species become isolated mononuclear with a highly aspecific feature below 0.1 wt.-% of the Ti content, and that the isolated aspecific Ti species are more efficiently converted into highly isospecific ones by the addition of donors than active sites in aggregated Ti species.