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arXiv · 2607.09903

The Precursor Genome: A Pairwise Reaction Dataset for Solid-State Synthesis

Abstract

Solid-state reactions remain the dominant route to inorganic materials, yet no large, machine-readable dataset reports their experimental protocols and outcomes with consistent provenance; this gap obstructs first-principles, data-driven, and machine-learning approaches to synthesis science. Here, we present the Precursor Genome, a dataset of 1,035 pairwise solid-state reactions generated autonomously by the A-Lab self-driving laboratory, spanning 46 precursors and 39 elements. Every reaction is reported together with its full experimental metadata, including measured thermal profiles, precursor and recovered masses, and instrument configuration. Every product mixture is identified from raw X-ray diffraction (1,351 scans) through automated Rietveld refinement with the Dara framework, yielding 1,950 refinement cases that are independently validated by human experts on a three-tier quality scale. Raw pattern files, serialized refinement objects, and reviewer annotations are distributed through a Pydantic-validated JSON ledger, preserving full traceability from each precursor pair to its final phase assignment. The Precursor Genome establishes a FAIR, reusable benchmark for training and evaluating predictive models of solid-state reactivity.

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BibTeXRIS

Lauren N. Walters, Matthew J. McDermott, Bernardus Rendy, Yuxing Fei, Kristin A. Persson, Gerbrand Ceder. 2026-07-10. The Precursor Genome: A Pairwise Reaction Dataset for Solid-State Synthesis. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.09903

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