Accelerated Porosity Screening Using a Multichannel Colorimetric Array

Abstract

Porous materials are important for many technologies, but the measurement of porosity by gas adsorption isotherms is slow, taking around one day per sample using a single-port gas sorption analyzer, even when using a “quick” analysis method with relatively few data points. With the increased use of automated platforms for material generation, porosity analysis is now frequently the bottleneck in the discovery of new porous materials. Here, we present a semiautomated pre-screening strategy that uses dye adsorption to create a colorimetric array that is combined with computer vision analysis for porosity screening. By using a six-dye multichannel array and a defined porosity threshold, our method rapidly screened 50 candidate materials that spanned molecular solids, polymers, and metal–organic frameworks. The method showed a 98–100% classification accuracy compared with gas uptake measurements. While this method is more qualitative than quantitative, it is more than 30 times faster than conventional gas sorption measurements, and it has the scope to be made much faster with greater parallelization and automation. This makes this colorimetric method suitable for pre-screening arrays of materials to choose samples that merit more detailed conventional porosity analysis.