Machine learning in sustainable chemistry

Dr S. Alireza Ghasemi, a physicist at Paderborn University, has received a Georg Forster Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The funding will be used to set up a research group to investigate new machine learning methods for photocatalytic water splitting. The fellowship is aimed at postdoc students and experienced scientists from developing and emerging countries. Ghasemi is a member of Professor Thomas D. Kühne’s “Theoretical Chemistry” research group. Prior to this, he was a lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS) in Iran.

“The aim is to leverage machine learning to computationally predict new polymeric carbon nitride compounds. These substances are particularly well-suited for the sustainable photocatalytic splitting of water,” says Kühne, describing the work of his colleague. The advantage of this: This process enables water to be split into its two components hydrogen and oxygen – without the controversial use of ‘rare earths’ or expensive transition metals like gold. In addition, polymeric carbon nitride compounds are also suitable for the adsorption and storage of carbon dioxide and the catalytic conversion of CO2 into biofuels. Ghasemi’s work will therefore also be incorporated in the university’s Centre for Sustainable Systems Design, which is dedicated to interdisciplinary research on sustainability.

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