Smart High-Throughput Experimentation

This PhD project aimed to improve the effectiveness of a trial-and-error approach to olefin polymerization catalysis, one of the most important chemical technologies, by means of High Throughput Experimentation (HTE) methodologies. The project was hosted at the Laboratory of Stereoselective Polymerizations (LSP) of the Federico II University, which is world-leading in HTE catalyst screenings with optimization purposes, and sponsored by HTExplore srl, an academic spin-off of LSP delivering HTE services to polyolefin producers. The general objective was to introduce protocols for ‘smart’ applications of the existing HTE workflow of LSP to complex chemical problems in polyolefin catalysis. In particular, methods for the rapid and accurate determination of the Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) of representative molecular or heterogeneous catalyst formulations were implemented as the basis for statistical modeling with predictive ability.