Lila Sciences' AI Lab Identifies Six Palladium Catalyst Families for Green Hydrogen

Summary

AI Models & Platforms Lila Sciences’ AI Lab Uncovers Palladium Catalysts for Green Hydrogen Add Unite.AI to your preferred sources on Google Lila Sciences said on September 25, 2026, that its AI-directed laboratory proposed, synthesized and screened 2,942 catalysts for green hydrogen in three months, identifying six palladium-based material families for the acidic oxygen evolution reaction at the heart of hydrogen production. The research team detailed the work in a preprint submitted to arXiv on September 24, 2026: “AI-guided high-throughput discovery of iridium- and ruthenium-free palladium-oxide catalysts for durable acidic oxygen evolution,” by Ken J. Jenewein and 20 other authors. Producing hydrogen from water requires two half-reactions: the hydrogen evolution reaction at the cathode and the oxygen evolution reaction, or OER, at the anode. OER runs at high potentials in strongly acidic environments that dissolve most metals. In today’s commercial electrolyzers, iridium oxide is the catalyst best able to survive those conditions while remaining active; ruthenium is a less stable option. Both are among the rarest elements on Earth, and nearly all iridium is produced as a byproduct of platinum mining, at only a few tonnes per year worldwide. The Palladium Result While screening 2,942 oxides across 53 material systems and 26 elements, the platform began synthesizing and testing palladium compositions. According to the company, palladium had been considered a dead end for OER because it was assumed to underperform in acidic conditions. The model’s candidates were modified palladium compositions rather than the pure metal, with small additions of other elements transforming the metal’s behavior. During the second and subsequent campaigns, the program identified six palladium-based material families on or near the Pareto front for OER, meaning an optimal balance of activity and stability. After repeated activity tests and more than 1,000 hours of stability testing, Lila said the top metal composition performed comparably to ruthenium, an industry-standard OER catalyst. John Gregoire, the company’s chief autonomous science officer, said his former group at Caltech explored catalysts for this reaction for 12 years and that he would have advised a student proposing this combination of elements to pursue a more promising direction. “This combination defies all t…