Abstract: The urgency to find solutions to global challenges in the fields of energy, sustainability and health has inspired a rethinking of conventional chemical and material science processes. Self-driving laboratories, which incorporate disruptive physical and digital technologies such as robotics, additive manufacturing, reaction miniaturization, and artificial intelligence, may accelerate the rate of discovery of materials and molecules by 10–100 times. By using autonomous robotic experiment workflows, self-driving labs allow access to much of the chemical universe and reduce discovery cycles by combining AI sequential learning, optimizing experimental design to minimize experiments, and automating analytical tests. The proof of concept introduced here bring this concept to reality by implementing multiple advanced robotics elements together with IA assisted experimental design and orchestration software technology to unlock the true potential of self-driving laboratories under Repsol’s laboratory infrastructure. In particular, we have set up an autonomous laboratory for the iterative design and testing of novel low-carbon fuels and lubricants formulations with the aim to reduce by 50% our time to delivery.
