Thermodynamically consistent machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy

The excess Gibbs energy plays a central role in chemical engineering and chemistry, providing a basis for modeling thermodynamic properties of liquid mixtures. Predicting the excess Gibbs energy of multi-component mixtures solely from molecular structures is a long-standing challenge. We address this challenge with HANNA, a flexible machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy that integrates physical laws as hard constraints, guaranteeing thermodynamically consistent predictions. HANNA is trained on experimental data for vapor-liquid equilibria, liquid-liquid equilibria, activity coefficients at infinite dilution, and excess enthalpies in binary mixtures. The end-to-end training on liquid-liquid equilibrium data is facilitated by a surrogate solver. A geometric projection method enables robust extrapolations to multi-component mixtures. We demonstrate that HANNA delivers accurate predictions, while providing a substantially broader domain of applicability than state-of-the-art benchmark methods. The trained model and corresponding code are openly available, and an interactive interface is provided on our website, MLPROP.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2026-04-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71430-y
Primary Topic
Neural Networks and Applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Thermodynamically consistent machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy

Thomas Specht, Marco Hoffmann, Stephan Mandt, Hans Hasse et al.
Nature Communications
Neural Networks and Applications
article

Thermodynamically consistent machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy

Thomas Specht, Marco Hoffmann, Stephan Mandt, Hans Hasse, Fabian Jirasek, Quirin Göttl, Jakob Burger
article en

Abstract

The excess Gibbs energy plays a central role in chemical engineering and chemistry, providing a basis for modeling thermodynamic properties of liquid mixtures. Predicting the excess Gibbs energy of multi-component mixtures solely from molecular structures is a long-standing challenge. We address this challenge with HANNA, a flexible machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy that integrates physical laws as hard constraints, guaranteeing thermodynamically consistent predictions. HANNA is trained on experimental data for vapor-liquid equilibria, liquid-liquid equilibria, activity coefficients at infinite dilution, and excess enthalpies in binary mixtures. The end-to-end training on liquid-liquid equilibrium data is facilitated by a surrogate solver. A geometric projection method enables robust extrapolations to multi-component mixtures. We demonstrate that HANNA delivers accurate predictions, while providing a substantially broader domain of applicability than state-of-the-art benchmark methods. The trained model and corresponding code are openly available, and an interactive interface is provided on our website, MLPROP.

Nature CommunicationsVol. 17(1)
University of Kaiserslautern (DE), Irvine University (US), Technical University of Munich (DE)
National Science Foundation, Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Openalex Percentile: Top 99%
Neural Networks and Applications
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Thermodynamically consistent machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy — Thomas Specht, Marco Hoffmann, et al. · Nature Communications (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS