Many advances in medicine, energy production and space exploration depend on scientists and engineers inventing new molecules and materials. Unfortunately, we still synthesize molecules in a time-consuming and very manual fashion, which acts as a significant bottleneck to scientific progress. There is an increasing need for a laboratory automation robot for organic chemistry. Some chemistry automation solutions exist, but they suffer from a number of limitations, especially for one-off chemical "prototyping". We are building a new chemical synthesis robot that overcomes these limitations, with the ultimate goal of automating the most tedious and time-consuming chemistry lab operations: weighing solids, volumetrically dispensing liquids, running reactions and purification.
Laboratory for Emergent Nanomaterials
Associated Researchers
