A partially quantum‑informed crystal graph network for direct adsorption energy prediction in catalysis

The rational design of heterogeneous catalysts requires predictive tools that balance quantum-level accuracy with computational efficiency for estimating adsorbate energetics. Although recent machine learning approaches have shown strong performance, they mostly depend on total energy decomposition and/or force supervision, where forces are obtained as the gradient of the potential energy with respect to atomic positions. As a result, they tend to be computationally complex, often requiring the prediction of several components, including the surface, the adsorbate, and the combined system. To make a contribution in addressing this challenge, we introduce Q-CatNet, a partially quantum-informed crystal graph catalyst network designed for direct prediction of initial structure-to-adsorption energy correlation for both single-atom and multi-atom (molecular) adsorbates on bulk catalyst surfaces. The model extends the Crystal Graph Convolutional Neural Network (CGCNN) framework by incorporating electrostatic Hamiltonian-inspired edge descriptors together with global features derived from density of states (DOS) and X ray diffraction (XRD) signals, enabling the capture of both local bonding interactions and system-wide physical correlations. Benchmarking on a curated dataset confirms its robustness: Q-CatNet outperforms the image-based Fourier-Transformed Crystal Property (FTCP) representation by 46% and exceeds several invariant graph-based architectures by margins ranging from 8% to 38%. These results highlight Q-CatNet as a physically grounded framework that bypasses the need for total energy decomposition, enabling a faster and practical adsorption‑energy prediction towards accelerated catalyst discovery in materials science and engineering.