Neural Network-Guided Symbolic Regression for Interpretable Descriptor Discovery in Perovskite Catalysts

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Xian, Yeming, Wang, Xiaoming, Yan, Yanfa
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Xian, Yeming
Wang, Xiaoming
Yan, Yanfa
author_facet Xian, Yeming
Wang, Xiaoming
Yan, Yanfa
contents Understanding and predicting the activity of oxide perovskite catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) requires descriptors that are both accurate and physically interpretable. While symbolic regression (SR) offers a path to discover such formulas, its performance degrades with high-dimensional inputs and small datasets. We present a two-phase framework that combines neural networks (NN), feature importance analysis, and symbolic regression (SR) to discover interpretable descriptors for OER activity in oxide perovskites. In Phase I, using a small dataset and seven structural features, we reproduce and improve the known μ/t descriptor by engineering composite features and applying symbolic regression, achieving training and validation MAEs of 22.8 and 20.8 meV, respectively. In Phase II, we expand to 164 features, reduce dimensionality, and identify LUMO energy as a key electronic descriptor. A final formula using μ/t, μ/RA, and LUMO energy achieves improved accuracy (training and validation MAEs of 22.1 and 20.6 meV) with strong physical interpretability. Our results demonstrate that NN-guided symbolic regression enables accurate, interpretable, and physically meaningful descriptor discovery in data-scarce regimes, indicating interpretability need not sacrifice accuracy for materials informatics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_12404
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Neural Network-Guided Symbolic Regression for Interpretable Descriptor Discovery in Perovskite Catalysts
Xian, Yeming
Wang, Xiaoming
Yan, Yanfa
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Materials Science
Machine Learning
Computational Physics
Understanding and predicting the activity of oxide perovskite catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) requires descriptors that are both accurate and physically interpretable. While symbolic regression (SR) offers a path to discover such formulas, its performance degrades with high-dimensional inputs and small datasets. We present a two-phase framework that combines neural networks (NN), feature importance analysis, and symbolic regression (SR) to discover interpretable descriptors for OER activity in oxide perovskites. In Phase I, using a small dataset and seven structural features, we reproduce and improve the known μ/t descriptor by engineering composite features and applying symbolic regression, achieving training and validation MAEs of 22.8 and 20.8 meV, respectively. In Phase II, we expand to 164 features, reduce dimensionality, and identify LUMO energy as a key electronic descriptor. A final formula using μ/t, μ/RA, and LUMO energy achieves improved accuracy (training and validation MAEs of 22.1 and 20.6 meV) with strong physical interpretability. Our results demonstrate that NN-guided symbolic regression enables accurate, interpretable, and physically meaningful descriptor discovery in data-scarce regimes, indicating interpretability need not sacrifice accuracy for materials informatics.
title Neural Network-Guided Symbolic Regression for Interpretable Descriptor Discovery in Perovskite Catalysts
topic Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Materials Science
Machine Learning
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12404