Discovery of multi-functional polyimides through high-throughput screening using explainable machine learning

Journal Article · Thu Apr 13 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Chemical Engineering Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2023.142949· OSTI ID:2424764

Tao, Lei ^[1]; He, Jinlong ^[2]; Munyaneza, Nuwayo Eric ^[3]; Varshney, Vikas ^[4]; Chen, Wei ^[5]; Liu, Guoliang ^[3]; Li, Ying ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (United States)
2. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
3. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
4. Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH (United States)
5. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)

Polyimides have been widely used in modern industries because of their excellent mechanical and thermal properties, e.g., high-temperature fuel cells, displays, and aerospace composites. However, it usually takes decades of experimental efforts to develop a successful product. Aiming to expedite the discovery of high-performance polyimides, we utilize computational methods of machine learning (ML) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Our study provides compelling evidence for the effectiveness of a data-driven approach in discovering novel polyimides. We first build a comprehensive library of more than 8 million hypothetical polyimides based on the polycondensation of existing dianhydride and diamine/diisocyanate molecules. Then we establish multiple ML models for the thermal and mechanical properties of polyimides based on their experimentally reported values, including glass transition temperature, Young’s modulus, and tensile yield strength. The obtained ML models demonstrate excellent predictive performance in identifying the key chemical substructures influencing the thermal and mechanical properties of polyimides. The use of explainable machine learning describes the effect of chemical substructures on individual properties, from which human experts can understand the cause of the ML model decision. Applying the well-trained ML models, we obtain property predictions of the 8 million hypothetical polyimides. Then, we screen the whole hypothetical dataset and identify three (3) best-performing novel polyimides that have better-combined properties than existing ones through Pareto frontier analysis. For an easy query of the discovered high-performing polyimides, we also create an online platform https://polyimide-explorer.herokuapp.com/ that embeds the developed ML model with interactive visualization. Furthermore, we validate the ML predictions through all-atom MD simulations and examine their synthesizability. The MD simulations are in good agreement with the ML predictions and the three novel polyimides are predicted to be easy to synthesize via Schuffenhauer’s synthetic accessibility score. Following the proposed ML guidance, we successfully synthesized a novel polyimide and the experimentally obtained high glass transition/thermal decomposition temperature demonstrated its excellent thermal stability. Here our study demonstrates an efficient way to expedite the discovery of novel polymers using ML prediction and MD validation. The high-throughput screening of a large computational dataset can serve as a general approach for new material discovery in other polymeric material exploration problems, such as organic photovoltaics, polymer membranes, and dielectrics.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: National Science Foundation (NSF); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• OSTI ID: 2424764
• Journal Information: Chemical Engineering Journal, Journal Name: Chemical Engineering Journal Journal Issue: C Vol. 465; ISSN 1385-8947
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Explainable machine learning
Molecular dynamics
Multi-functional polyimides
Ultrahigh thermomechanical properties