Open Access

The first funding period of NFDI4Chem established a robust foundation for research data management (RDM) in chemistry by promoting FAIR data principles and creating a cohesive infrastructure to capture well-annotated data early in the lab through electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) and making this data available in public repositories. Key achievements include standardised data formats and metadata, a federated repository environment, and improved data visibility and accessibility. Training programs and outreach have significantly increased awareness and adoption of best RDM practices. In the second funding period, the consortium aims to advance these achievements by consolidating this infrastructure, developing a model for its sustainable maintenance and operation, and fostering cultural change for its widespread adoption. Goals include ensuring seamless data workflows from laboratories to open repositories, enhancing interoperability, and supporting innovative research through AI-ready data. The work plan is organised into six task areas (TAs). TA1 (Management) provides leadership and supports all other TAs in achieving their objectives. TA2 (Smart Lab) aims to develop a fully digital research environment, including an ELN as a modular platform. This environment will support data collection, management, storage, analysis, and sharing. Integrating devices and external resources will enable seamless data transfer to repositories. TA3 (Repositories) will consolidate the repository ecosystem. The goal is to integrate repositories into a federated system for better accessibility and interoperability, ensuring long-term data availability and sustainability. TA4 (Metadata, Data Standards, and Publication Standards) focuses on developing and promoting new data and metadata standards in an international community process. This includes applying ontologies to create a semantic foundation for linking research data, making it machine-readable and enabling knowledge graphs. TA5 (Community and Training) is dedicated to fostering a cultural shift towards digital chemistry through continuous engagement, collecting requirements, and providing extensive training and support through workshops and open education resources. It will promote FAIR-compliant machine learning applications, embedding RDM into academic curricula to ensure future scientists are well-versed in these practices. TA6 (Synergies and Cross-Cutting Topics) aims to enhance collaboration across NFDI consortia and beyond. This includes developing ontologies, terminology services, the search service, and other cross-cutting solutions, integrating these developments into existing infrastructure, enabling interdisciplinary data harmonisation and fostering machine learning applications.

Infraredmatrix-assisted laser dispersion and ionization(IR-MALDI) in combination with on mobility (IM) spectrometry enables the direct Analysis of biomolecules in aqueous solution. The release of ions directly from an aqueous solution is based on a phase explosion, induced by the Absorption of an IR laser pulse, which disperses the liquid as vapor, nano- and micro-droplets. The ionization process is characterized initially by a broad spatial distribution of the ions, which is a result of complex fluid dynamics and desolvation kinetics. These processes have a profound effect on the shape and width of the peaks in the IM spectra. In this work, the Transport of ions by the phase explosion-induced shockwave could be studied independently from the transport by the electric field. The shockwave-induced mean velocities of the ions at different time scales were determined through IM spectrometry and shadowgraphy. The results show a deceleration of the Ions from 118m∙s−1 at a distance of 400 μm from the liquid surface to 7.1 m∙s−1 at a distance of 10 mm, which is caused by a pileup effect. Furthermore, the desolvation kinetics were investigated and a first-order desolvation constant of 325 ± 50 s−1 was obtained. In the second part, the IR-MALDI-IM spectrometer is used as an HPLC detector for the twodimensional separation of a pesticide mixture.

Recently, the detection of molecular species in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has gained increasing interest, particularly for isotopic analysis. In LIBS of organic materials, it is predominantly CN and C2 species that are formed, and multiple mechanisms may contribute to their formation. To gain deeper insight into the formation of these species, laser-induced plasma of 13C and 15N labeled organic materials was investigated in a temporally and spatially resolved manner. LIBS on fumaric acid with a 13C labeled double bond allowed the formation mechanism of C2 to be investigated by analyzing relative signal intensities of 12C2, 12C13C, and 13C2 molecules. In the early plasma (<5 µs), the majority of C2 originates from association of completely atomized target molecules, whereas in the late plasma, the increased concentration of 13C2 is due to incomplete dissociation of the carbon double bond. The degree of this fragmentation was found to be up to 80% and to depend on the type of the atmospheric gas. Spatial distributions of C2 revealed distinct differences for plasma generated in nitrogen and argon. A study of the interaction of ablated organics with ambient nitrogen showed that the ambient nitrogen contributed mainly to CN formation. The pronounced anisotropy of the C15N to C14N ratio across the diameter of the plasma was observed in the early plasma, indicating poor initial mixing of the plasma with the ambient gas. Overall, for accurate isotope analysis of organics, LIBS in argon with relatively short integration times (<10 µs) provides the most robust results. On the other hand, if information about the original molecular structure is of interest, then experiments in nitrogen (or air) with long integration times appear to be the most promising.

Acoustically levitated droplets have been suggested as compartmentalized, yet wall-less microreactors for high-throughput reaction optimization purposes. The absence of walls is envisioned to simplify up-scaling of the optimized reaction conditions found in the microliter volumes. A consequent pursuance of high-throughput chemistry calls for a fast, robust and sensitive analysis suited for online interrogation. For reaction optimization, targeted Analysis with relatively low sensitivity suffices, while a fast, robust and automated sampling is paramount. To follow this approach, in this contribution, a direct coupling of levitated droplets to a homebuilt ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) is presented. The sampling, Transfer to the gas phase, as well as the ionization are all performed by a single exposure of the sampling volume to the resonant output of a mid-IR laser. Once formed, the nascent spatially and temporally evolving analyte ion cloud needs to be guided out of the acoustically confined trap into the inlet of the ion mobility spectrometer. Since the IMS is operated at ambient pressure, no fluid dynamic along a pressure Gradient can be employed. Instead, the transfer is achieved by the electrostatic potential gradient inside a dual ring electrode ion optics, guiding the analyte ion cloud into the first stage of the IMS linear drift tube accelerator. The design of the appropriate atmospheric pressure ion optics is based on the original vacuum ion optics design of Wiley and McLaren. The obtained experimental results nicely coincide with ion trajectory calculations based on a collisional model.

A novel direct sampling ionisation scheme for ambient mass spectrometry is presented. Desorption and ionisation are achieved by a quasi-continuous laser induced plasma in air. Since there are no solid or liquid electrodes involved the ion source does not suffer from chemical interferences or fatigue originating from erosive burning or from electrode consumption. The overall plasma maintains electro-neutrality, minimising charge effects and accompanying long term drift of the charged particles trajectories. In the airborne plasma approach the ambient air not only serves as the plasma medium but at the same time also slows down the nascent ions via collisional cooling. Ionisation of the analyte molecules does not occur in the plasma itself but is induced by interaction with nascent ionic fragments, electrons and/or far ultraviolet photons in the plasma vicinity. At each individual air-spark an audible shockwave is formed, providing new reactive species, which expands concentrically and, thus, prevents direct contact of the analyte with the hot region inside the plasma itself. As a consequence the interaction volume between plasma and analyte does not exceed the threshold temperature for thermal dissociation or fragmentation. Experimentally this indirect ionisation scheme is demonstrated to be widely unspecific to the chemical nature of the analyte and to hardly result in any fragmentation of the studied molecules. A vast ensemble of different test analytes including polar and non-polar hydrocarbons, sugars, low mass active ingredients of pharmaceuticals as well as natural biomolecules in food samples directly out of their complex matrices could be shown to yield easily accessible yet meaningful spectra. Since the plasma medium is humid air, the chemical reaction mechanism of the ionisation is likely to be similar to other ambient ionisation techniques.