Catalyst & Materials
The problem
Catalyst and materials discovery takes persistence and patience. Every new formulation means weighing powders, dosing metal precursors, adjusting pH, and running high-temperature syntheses, one by one. It’s slow, inconsistent, and tough to reproduce. Miss the mark on pH or temperature, and that “perfect” catalyst turns into another data point you can’t trust.
Advancing catalysts and materials — from metal oxides to zeolites, MOFs, and nanoparticles — means screening more compositions under tighter control. But when every step still relies on manual weighing, mixing, and washing, progress crawls.
The right tool for the job
Stuntman combines built-in AI with modular hardware to adapt to what your catalyst and materials discovery workflow needs. Turn your natural-language prompts into executable scripts that can orchestrate closed-loop automation from start to finish. Stuntman’s AI helps plan and organize experiments, interpret results, and guide how things progress. Design, execute, and analyze experiments all in one place using Stuntman AI, intuitive drag-and-drop interface workflows, or Python with full API access. Every detail is tracked in real time and every datapoint is captured as it happens.
Configure your deck your way to automate tough materials science workflow – whether it’s solid and liquid dispensing, catalyst synthesis via impregnation, co-precipitation, hydrothermal synthesis or particle recovery. Stuntman brings every part of catalyst and materials workflow together – setup, synthesis, recovery, and analysis. Turn weeks of bench work into days of reproducible, high-quality results.
What’s possible
Powder and liquid dispense
Every catalyst workflow starts with getting powders and precursors exactly right. From bulk supports to fine metal oxides, Stuntman's SV and Classic hoppers make powder dosing reproducible at any scale. Classic hoppers (10, 25, 50, 100 mL) are perfect for one-to-many dispenses of common supports or oxides. Storage Vial (SV) hoppers use 4 mL glass vials with disposable heads for parallel, multi-material libraries. Load up any combo of Classic and SV hoppers on a single Stuntman deck. Let the adaptive algorithms learn each powder flow profile to ensure precise delivery from sub-milligram to gram scale.
Liquids are handled just as precisely. Piercing tips keep volatile precursors sealed tight, Positive Displacement Tips (PDTs) cover 10 µL to 10 mL for viscous or reactive liquids, and wide-bore needles move particle-rich slurries without clogging. Solvents can be drawn from on-deck or off-deck sources, ranging from a few microliters to hundreds of milliliters. Every liquid type can be calibrated individually, eliminating uncertainty and ensuring every dispense hits the mark — no drips, no waste, no surprises.
pH measurement and adjustment
Getting your precursor chemistry right from the start saves everything downstream. Stuntman measures and adjusts the pH of metal precursor and support solutions automatically, locking in the right conditions before impregnation or co-precipitation ever begin. Inline solid-state pH probes track every addition, and automated titration brings each solution into range with precision — whether you’re neutralizing metal salts, buffering acids, or conditioning supports.
Impregnation and co-precipitation
Forget juggling burettes or hand-adjusting pH. Stuntman takes on the classic catalyst prep steps – without the tedium. Vertical shaker and whisk mixing guarantee uniform wetting of supports during impregnation. For co-precipitation, multi-liquid feeds deliver metal salts, bases, and additives simultaneously under real-time pH and temperature control.
Once precipitation or impregnation is complete, automated washing and catalyst recovery take over. Inline pH and conductivity probes guide titration and rinsing loops automatically — adjusting feeds, tracking ion concentration, and confirming when samples are fully neutralized. On-deck centrifugation and liquid handling arms handle separation and washing hands-free, ensuring clean solids and reproducible results every time. No waiting, no rework — just catalysts you can trust, batch after batch.
Thermal processing and hydrothermal synthesis
Catalyst activation and materials crystallization need heat, pressure, and patience — Stuntman takes care of all three. Deck Screening Pressure Reactors (DSPR) and Optimization Sampling Reactors (OSR) give you flexibility across temperatures, pressures, and reaction volumes.
DSPR runs up to 96 sealed microreactors in parallel on a Heated Stir Bay on the Stuntman deck. Reactions can be run from ambient to 180 °C and up to 200 psi (13.8 bar), making it perfect for fast screening of zeolite crystallization, MOF precursor optimization, or nanoparticle formation under hydrothermal or solvothermal conditions.
OSR handles the heavy lifting with up to 48 larger reactors, reaching 200 °C and up to 750 psi (51.7 bar). Every reactor can be controlled separately for temperature, pressure, and gas or liquid feed so you can screen multiple metal loadings, solvent systems, or hydrothermal recipes side by side. Zeolite and MOF crystallization? No problem. Hydrothermal nanoparticle synthesis? Done. Catalyst activation under reactive gases? Absolutely. Stuntman makes even the toughest syntheses routine — safe, parallel, and perfectly reproducible.
Analytics and characterization
When it’s time to analyze, samples can be deposited directly onto a crystallizer block. The block consists of plastic tubes sealed against a glass substrate or a Kapton substrate. When the experiment is done, disassemble the block and drop the substrate directly into a high-throughput XRD, SEM, or Raman – ready for analysis without transfer, contamination, or loss.
When it’s time to analyze, samples can be deposited directly onto a crystallizer block. The block consists of plastic tubes sealed against a glass substrate or a Kapton substrate. When the experiment is done, disassemble the block and drop the substrate directly into a high-throughput XRD, SEM, or Raman – ready for analysis without transfer, contamination, or loss.
Analytics and characterization
With Stuntman, the possibilities are endless . Use Stuntman’s built-in AI or Python API to connect with your own tools, data systems, or AI and machine learning platforms. Drop in modules your science calls for hook it up to third-party systems for prep, processing or analysis. Keep expanding as your science evolves.
Stuntman
Stuntman has natural-language AI embedded directly into the system to help plan and design smarter experiments, close the loop faster, and adapt as conditions change, while hardware is configured upfront to fit your workflow. The result is faster iteration, more informative data, and automation that finally keeps pace with real science, whether you’re working in chemistry, biologics, materials, or beyond.
Want more info?
Every lab has different bottlenecks and challenges. We’re all about partnering with you to build the bespoke solution that lets you do science faster and better. Have questions or can’t wait to speak with our expert team to find out what might be possible?