We have developed a combinatorial robot system for measuring, mixing and molding liquid samples with an automatic micropipette, which produces a group of sample libraries for ceramic powders on a reaction pallet. In this study, metal oxide nano-particle slurries and inorganic solutions were used as starting raw materials. Either of these starting materials was confirmed to become homogeneous mixtures with automatic mixing operation on the basis of a few experimental examples such as the synthesis of multi-component compounds. Homogeneous slurry mixtures were almost as reactive as gels obtained by sol-gel methods and also their slurries could be treated much more easily than sols. Nano-particle slurries were confirmed to be excellent starting raw materials for combinatorial powder synthesis with this robot system. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.