Just submitted to arXiv.org: Amy's work on closed loop autonomous crystallisation, sample preparation, and powder X-ray diffraction. This is the most complex automated workflow that we've built so far, involving 3 separate robots & 13 steps Leverhulme Research Centre - Materials Design MIF ERC_ADAM

The workflow starts with crystal growth followed by sample preparation (2-step grinding), sample mounting, and PXRD data acquisition. It is orchestrated by our system architecture, #ARChemist, masterminded by @HatemFakhrulde1

A key step is grinding the crystals for better orientational averaging (and, indeed, to get them out of the sample vial ...)

To process the crystals, we use this versatile @ABBRobotics YuMi robot for sample handling

Very proud of @amylunt for building this in her PhD, especially given the huge slow-down during COVID. Amy, you're a superstar. The work was done with @sam_c and also involved @HatemFakhrulde1, @gabriellapizz, Louis, @TheWubberDuck, @nici_rankin, @robclow11 and Ben A. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

By the way - if anyone is interested, we are hiring a Lecturer in this general area of chemistry automation - advert to be posted soon (DM me if you're interested)

Credit also to @daftpunk for the 🎸

Btw, I have the @amazon receipt for the MP3 ...

@arxiv @amylunt @LC_Mater_Design @MIF_UoL @erc_adam This gets a “very cool!” and “how can they get robots to do that?” from my 5yo daughter. Have to say I’m in agreement!

@arxiv @amylunt @LC_Mater_Design @MIF_UoL @erc_adam Cheers Ross. The toys are in the post.

@MolecularXtal @arxiv @amylunt @LC_Mater_Design @MIF_UoL @erc_adam This is super cool Andy! How do you organize and store the huge amount of data that you guys generate? Did you code your own database?

@MolecularXtal @arxiv @amylunt @LC_Mater_Design @MIF_UoL @erc_adam Thanks! This is a recent implementation so we don't (yet) have a huge amount of data, but there is the potential to generate it - and yes, we're looking at databases also to compare with predicted structures with @graeme_day in our @erc_adam project