Your new labmate does 700 reactions in eight days – and it’s a robot
Robotic chemist optimises water-splitting photocatalyst by working continuously for eight days even in complete darkness
A mobile robot chemist has shown endurance unrivalled by its human colleagues by working for eight days straight and performing 688 reactions.
Devised by Andrew Cooper’s team at the University of Liverpool, UK, the robot ran experiments to optimise hydrogen production from light and water. ‘The most exciting point is that this could be applied to a lot of different chemistries, not just photocatalysis – and actually not just chemistry,’ Cooper says.