# Palladium-based OER catalyst

Lila Sciences used a closed-loop autonomous laboratory to search for acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts, a reaction long dependent on scarce iridium and ruthenium. Its AI model proposed palladium-based recipes while screening 2,942 oxides, although palladium had been treated as a dead end under acidic conditions. After repeated activity tests and more than 1,000 hours of stability testing, the lead modified-palladium candidate performed comparably to ruthenium, and the program identified six palladium-based material families on or near the activity-stability Pareto front.

Lila Sciences used a closed-loop autonomous laboratory to search for acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts, a reaction long dependent on scarce iridium and ruthenium. Its AI model proposed palladium-based recipes while screening 2,942 oxides, although palladium had been treated as a dead end under acidic conditions. After repeated activity tests and more than 1,000 hours of stability testing, the lead modified-palladium candidate performed comparably to ruthenium, and the program identified six palladium-based material families on or near the activity-stability Pareto front.