Harnessing the Combined Power of Theoretical and Experimental Data through Multiscale Informatics
Authors: Burke Michael P. 
Published: March 2016

Monumental, recent and rapidly continuing, improvements in the capabilities of ab initio theoretical kinetics calculations provides reason to believe that progress in the field of chemical kinetics can be accelerated through a corresponding evolution of the role of theory in kinetic modeling and its relationship with experiment. The present article reviews and provides additional demonstrations of the unique advantages that arise when theoretical and experimental data across multiple scales are considered on equal footing, including the relevant uncertainties of both, within a single mathematical framework. Namely, the multiscale informatics framework simultaneously integrates information from a wide variety of sources and scales: ab initio electronic structure calculations of molecular properties, rate constant determinations for individual reactions, and measured global observables of multireaction systems. The resulting model representation consists of a set of theoretical kinetics parameters (with constrained uncertainties) that are related through elementary kinetics models to rate constants (with propagated uncertainties) that in turn are related through physical models to global observables (with propagated uncertainties). An overview of the approach and typical implementation is provided along with a brief discussion of the major uncertainties (parametric and structural) in theoretical kinetics calculations, kinetic models for complex chemical mechanisms, and physical models for experiments. Higher levels of automation in all aspects, including closed‐loop autonomous mixed‐experimental‐and‐computational model improvement, are advocated for facilitating scalability of the approach to larger systems with reasonable human effort and computational cost. The unique advantages of combining theoretical and experimental data across multiple scales are illustrated through a series of examples. Previous results demonstrating the utility of simultaneous interpretation of theoretical and experimental data for assessing consistency in complex systems and for reliable, physics‐based extrapolation of limited data are briefly summarized. New results are presented to demonstrate the high predictive accuracy of multiscale informed models for both small (molecular properties) and large (global observables) scales. These new results provide examples where the optimization yields physically realistic parameter adjustments and where physical model uncertainties in experiments are larger than kinetic model uncertainties. New results are also presented to demonstrate the utility of the multiscale informatics approach for design of experiments and theoretical calculations, accounting for both theoretical and experimental existing knowledge as well as relevant parametric and structural uncertainties in interpreting potential new data. These new results provide examples where neglecting structural uncertainties in design of experiments results in failure to identify the most worthwhile experiment. Further progress in the chemical kinetics field (particularly at the intersection of theory, kinetic modeling, and experiment) would benefit from increased attention to understanding parametric and structural uncertainties for all three—the uncertainty magnitude and cross‐correlations among model parameters as well as limitations of the model structures themselves.