Accelerated Porosity Screening Using a Multichannel Colorimetric Array.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Chemical Engineering
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Porosity analysis is crucial for material applications but conventional gas adsorption methods are time-consuming.
• Automated material generation has made porosity analysis a bottleneck in discovering new porous materials.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a rapid, semiautomated pre-screening strategy for porosity analysis.
• To overcome the limitations of slow conventional porosity measurement techniques.

Main Methods:

• A colorimetric array using six dyes was employed for dye adsorption.
• Computer vision analysis was integrated with the dye array for porosity screening.
• The method screened 50 candidate materials including molecular solids, polymers, and metal-organic frameworks.

Main Results:

• The colorimetric method achieved 98-100% classification accuracy compared to gas uptake measurements.
• The screening strategy is over 30 times faster than conventional gas sorption measurements.
• The method is suitable for pre-screening large arrays of materials.

Conclusions:

• This colorimetric approach offers a rapid and efficient alternative for initial porosity assessment.
• The strategy can accelerate the discovery of new porous materials by identifying promising candidates for further analysis.
• Further parallelization and automation can significantly enhance the speed of this screening method.