Prometheus Initiative Fuels Open Data for Cleaner Combustion Technology
ChE Professor Richard West, in collaboration with Kyle Niemeyer from Oregon State University, was awarded a $599,925 NSF grant for “Disciplinary Improvements: The Prometheus Initiative: FAIR model and data cyberinfrastructure for predictive combustion science.” By helping to transition the combustion research community from its traditionally closed nature to an Open Science and collaborative paradigm, this grant aims to demonstrate that the open, distributed, and zero-barrier model of data sharing can serve as a model for other fields. Students will be trained in software engineering and data science best practices, as well as domain-specific computational skills. While researchers at universities and national laboratories will be the primary users of these data, the open and accessible nature of the proposed work will facilitate greater use of gas-phase chemical kinetics data by industry, especially in the energy, transportation, and aerospace sectors. Ultimately, this research will benefit society by enabling the development of accurate chemical kinetic models, which are necessary for designing efficient and clean combustion technology—for example, studying the behavior of biofuels in advanced low-temperature combustion engines or modeling soot formation in cookstoves.
Abstract Source: NSF
The project aims to unify the combustion research community’s fragmented datasets by creating open-source, standardized databases for gas-phase chemical kinetics experiments and models. The project will develop a machine-readable, web-based, and API-accessible repository that initially compiles public data and later incorporates researcher-contributed datasets, all adhering to FAIR principles to promote accessibility and reuse.
The project develops robust cyberinfrastructure to enable, facilitate, and encourage Public Access to and the widespread reuse of experimental and modeling data, stewarding Open Science in the field of gas-phase chemical kinetics, primarily combustion. This capability building project will: 1) devise open data formats for gas-phase chemical kinetics experiments and grow an open database of such measurements; 2) create a database for kinetic models and parameters with standardized formats; 3) build an innovative data repository model based on distributed version control to eliminate barriers to use, reuse, and contribution; 4) collect publicly available experimental and modeling data to bootstrap the databases; and 5) propose workflows and apps that use the database infrastructure, which will be useful in their own right, and serve as examples for others to follow in creating their own applications and workflows.