Faraday/STFC Operando Sample Environment Library

The open-access hardware registry for the UK battery community.

This repository hosts the machine-readable registry of sample environments (electrochemical cells) available across UK central facilities (ISIS, Diamond Light Source, etc.). It serves as the hardware ground truth for the Heuristic Operando framework, enabling researchers and AI agents to match experimental requirements with compatible hardware specifications.

Live Dashboard

Access the interactive tool here: Launch Registry

📖 Context

This registry supports the perspective article:

Autonomous battery research: Principles of heuristic operando experimentation > Emily Lu, Gabriel Perez, Peter Baker, Daniel Irving, Santosh Kumar, Veronica Celorrio, Sylvia Britto, Thomas F. Headen, Miguel Gomez-Gonzalez, Connor Wright, Calum Green, Robert Scott Young, Oleg Kirichek, Ali Mortazavi, Sarah Day, Isabel Antony, Zoe Wright, Thomas Wood, Tim Snow, Jeyan Thiyagalingam, Paul Quinn, Martin Owen Jones, William David, James Le Houx > arXiv:2601.00851 (2026) · Read the Preprint

It addresses the 3Rs of experimental hardware:

• Reliability: Tracking failure modes (e.g., beam damage, vibrations).
• Representativeness: Quantifying trade-offs between TRL and signal quality.
• Reproducibility: Standardizing metadata for pressure control and assembly.

Repository Structure

• app.py: The Streamlit dashboard source code.
• operando_cell_registry.json: The master database (JSON). This file adheres to the schema required for Digital Twin integration.
• requirements.txt: Python dependencies.

Local Usage

To run this dashboard on your own machine:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone [https://github.com/Base-Laboratory/OperandoCellLibrary.git](https://github.com/Base-Laboratory/OperandoCellLibrary.git)

2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Run the app:

   streamlit run app.py

Contributing

This is an Open Science initiative. We welcome contributions from beamline scientists and researchers.

• New Cells: Please submit a Pull Request adding your cell's JSON entry to operando_cell_registry.json.
• Corrections: If you spot an error in specifications (e.g., Max Temp), please open an Issue.

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3 Clause License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contact

Maintained by James Le Houx (STFC / The Faraday Institution).