Data-Driven Materials Science for Energy-Sustainable Applications

Materials science is underpinned by structure-property relationships that govern the function of a material. These relationships can be encoded into algorithms and integrated into machine-learning models that enable the prediction of materials and their cognate properties. However, machine-learning models are largely being trained on computed data owing to a worldwide shortage of real-world (experimental) datasets. This review describes how to capture and collate experimental data from scientific literature using artificial-intelligence (AI) methods to produce materials-domain-specific datasets or language models. Their application in AI-driven enquiries that facilitate progress in energy-sustainable materials science is then illustrated via six case studies that cover: training machine-learning models, data-driven materials discovery, optimizing manufacturing processes, mapping phases of materials, forecasting materials-centric research trends, and classifying types of materials using automated prompt engineering. The future of materials-domain-specific datasets, language models, and decision-making workflows using AI agents, is then envisioned for the energy sector. The intrinsic challenges of accessing historical dark data in materials science are then described and contrasted with timely opportunities for leveraging massive amounts of experimental data from laboratories in going forwards; by exploiting electronic-lab notebooks, high-throughput experiments, and digital-twin technologies. These opportunities are illustrated for energy-sustainable materials science, especially the photovoltaic and battery industries.