Assessing the Limits of Graph Neural Networks for Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium Prediction: A Cryogenic Mixture Case Study

Abstract

Accurate and fast thermophysical models are needed to embed vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) calculations in design, optimization, and control loops for cryogenic mixtures. This study asks whether a structure-aware graph neural network (GNN; DimeNet++) trained on GERG-2008/CoolProp data can act as a practical surrogate for an equation of state (EoS). We generate a ternary dataset over 90-200 K and pressures to 100 bar, curate it with a 15% density filter (reducing 5,200 states to 1,516), and pair each state with a lightweight molecular-dynamics snapshot to supply structural features. The model is trained in two stages; pretraining on residual Helmholtz energy followed by pressure fine-tuning with a stability penalty; and evaluated via single-phase interpolation tests, solver-free derivative-quality diagnostics, an audited VLE driver, and a latency benchmark. Within its regime, the GNN interpolates single-phase properties reasonably well; however, the VLE driver accepts no GNN equilibria on tested binaries (all plotted VLE points are CoolProp fallback or the solver fails), and diagnostic probes reveal jagged P(V|T) paths and thermal-stability flags concentrated in dense/cold regions, indicating insufficient derivative smoothness/consistency for robust equilibrium solving. An end-to-end timing comparison shows no single-phase speed advantage relative to CoolProp (tens of milliseconds vs sub-millisecond). We conclude that, as configured, the surrogate in this study is not solver-ready for VLE and offers no runtime benefit; its value is methodological, delineating failure modes and pointing to remedies such as physics-informed training signals and targeted coverage near phase boundaries.