Thermodynamically consistent machine learning model for excess Gibbs energy

M Marco Hoffmann T Thomas Specht Q Quirin Göttl J Jakob Burger S Stephan Mandt (Department of Computer Science, University of California) H Hans Hasse F Fabian Jirasek

Abstract

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.

Article Details

Volume / Issue Vol. 17, Issue 1
Published April 14, 2026
ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher Nature Portfolio

Journal Info

Nature Communications

Nature Portfolio

ISSN: 2041-1723 Open Access Life Sciences

Authors (7)

M

Marco Hoffmann

T

Thomas Specht

Q

Quirin Göttl

J

Jakob Burger

S

Stephan Mandt

Department of Computer Science, University of California

H

Hans Hasse

F

Fabian Jirasek