Fast-Decoding Algorithm for Electrode Processes at Electrified Interfaces by Mean-Field Kinetic Model and Bayesian Data Assimilation: An Active-Data-Mining Approach for the Efficient Search and Discovery of Electrocatalysts

The microscopic origins of the activity and selectivity of electrocatalysts has been a long-lasting enigma since the 19th century. By applying an active-data-mining approach, employing a mean-field kinetic model and a statistical approach of Bayesian data assimilation, we demonstrate here a fast decoding to extract key properties in the kinetics of complicated electrode processes from current–potential profiles in experimental and literary data. As the proof-of-concept, kinetic parameters on the four-electron oxygen reduction reaction in the 0.1 M HClO4 solution (ORR: O2 + 4e– + 4H+ → 2H2O) of various platinum-based single-crystal electrocatalysts are extracted from our own experiments and third-party literature to investigate the microscopic electrode processes. Furthermore, data assimilation of the mean-field ORR model and experimental data is performed based on Bayesian inference for the inductive estimation of kinetic parameters, which sheds light on the dynamic behavior of kinetic parameters with respect to overpotential. This work shows that a fast-decoding algorithm based on a mean-field kinetic model and Bayesian data assimilation is a promising data-driven approach to extract key microscopic features of complicated electrode processes and therefore will be an important method toward building up advanced human–machine collaborations for the efficient search and discovery of high-performance electrochemical materials.