Method and system for operating an electrochemical reactor

A method for operating an electrochemical reactor, the reactor comprising, as electrodes, an anode and a cathode, the reactor being configured to receive a feed of a starting material, to effect an electrochemical reaction of the starting material into a product in the presence of a catalyst-coated electrode, and to output the product, wherein the reactor is operated based on a set of operation parameters, the operation parameters at least comprising a voltage over the electrodes of the reactor and a dosage of catalyst solution and/or catalyst precursor solution into the feed of the starting material, the method comprising:

• receiving a reactor model, the reactor model describing a behavior of the reactor, including at least a relation between the voltage over the electrodes, and the dosage of catalyst solution and/or catalyst precursor solution into the starting material feed, wherein receiving the reactor model comprises
• receiving reactor metadata, wherein the reactor metadata include the following:
• the age of parts in the reactor and at least one of the type of parts in the reactor, number of the parts in the reactor and the geometric configuration of the reactor, or
• at least one of the type of parts in the reactor, the number of parts in the reactor, and the geometric configuration of the reactor,
• receiving sensor data representative for a current status of the reactor, and
• generating the reactor model by training a machine learning model based on the reactor metadata and the sensor data, wherein the machine learning model at least models the voltage over the electrodes;
• determining an optimized dosage by optimizing the dosage of catalyst solution and/or the catalyst precursor into the starting material feed in order to minimize the voltage using the reactor model;
• and
• outputting the optimized dosage for being used at operating the reactor.