Harmonising knowledge for safer materials via the “NanoCommons” Knowledge Base

In mediaeval Europe, the term “commons” described the way that communities managed land that was held “in common” and provided a clear set of rules for how this “common land” was used and developed by, and for, the community. Similarly, as we move towards an increasingly knowledge-based society where data is the new oil, new approaches to sharing and jointly owning publicly funded research data are needed to maximise its added value. Such common management approaches will extend the data’s useful life and facilitate its reuse for a range of additional purposes, from modelling, to meta-analysis to regulatory risk assessment as examples relevant to nanosafety data. This “commons” approach to nanosafety data and nanoinformatics infrastructure provision, co-development, and maintenance is at the heart of the “NanoCommons” project and underpins its post-funding transition to providing a basis on which other initiatives and projects can build. The present paper summarises part of the NanoCommons infrastructure called the NanoCommons Knowledge Base. It provides interoperability for nanosafety data sources and tools, on both semantic and technical levels. The NanoCommons Knowledge Base connects knowledge and provides both programmatic (via an Application Programming Interface) and a user-friendly graphical interface to enable (and democratise) access to state of the art tools for nanomaterials safety prediction, NMs design for safety and sustainability, and NMs risk assessment, as well. In addition, the standards and interfaces for interoperability, e.g., file templates to contribute data to the NanoCommons, are described, and a snapshot of the range and breadth of nanoinformatics tools and models that have already been integrated are presented Finally, we demonstrate how the NanoCommons Knowledge Base can support users in the FAIRification of their experimental workflows and how the NanoCommons Knowledge Base itself has progressed towards richer compliance with the FAIR principles

Highly efficient, NiAu-catalyzed hydrogenolysis of lignin into phenolic chemicals

A highly efficient, stable NiAu catalyst that exhibits unprecedented low temperature activity in lignin hydrogenolysis was for the first time developed, leading to the formation of 14 wt% aromatic monomers from organosolv lignin at 170 °C in pure water

Exploring Adverse Outcome Pathways for Nanomaterials with semantic web technologies

Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) have been proposed to facilitate mechanistic understanding of interactions of chemicals/materials with biological systems. Each AOP starts with a molecular initiating event (MIE) and possibly ends with adverse outcome(s) (AOs) via a series of key events (KEs). So far, the interaction of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) with biomolecules, biomembranes, cells, and biological structures, in general, is not yet fully elucidated yet. There is also a huge lack of information on which AOPs are ENMs-relevant or -specific, despite numerous published data on toxicological endpoints they trigger, such as oxidative stress and inflammation. We propose to integrate related data and knowledge recently collected. Our approach combines the annotation of nanomaterials and their MIEs with ontology annotation to demonstrate how we can then query AOPs and biological pathway information for these materials. We conclude that a FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) representation of the ENM-MIE knowledge simplifies integration with other knowledge

First-Principles-Based Microkinetics Simulations of Synthesis Gas Conversion on a Stepped Rhodium Surface

The kinetics of synthesis gas conversion on the stepped Rh(211) surface were investigated by computational methods. DFT calculations were performed to determine the reaction energetics for all elementary reaction steps relevant to the conversion of CO into methane, ethylene, ethane, formaldehyde, methanol, acetaldehyde, and ethanol. Microkinetics simulations were carried out on the basis of these first-principles data to predict the CO consumption rate and the product distribution as a function of temperature. The elementary reaction steps that control the CO consumption rate and the selectivity were analyzed in detail. Ethanol formation can only occur on the stepped surface, because the barrier for CO dissociation on Rh terraces is too high; step-edges are also required for the coupling reactions. The model predicts that formaldehyde is the dominant product at low temperature, ethanol at intermediate temperature, and methane at high temperature. The preference for ethanol over long hydrocarbon formation is due to the lower barrier for C­(H) + CO coupling as compared with the barriers for CH_<i>x</i> + CH_<i>y</i> coupling reactions. The C­(H)­CO surface intermediate is hydrogenated to ethanol via a sequence of hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions. The simulations show that ethanol formation competes with methane formation at intermediate temperatures. The rate-controlling steps are CO removal as CO₂ to create empty sites for the dehydrogenation steps in the reaction sequence leading to ethanol, CH_<i>x</i>CH_<i>y</i>O hydrogenation for ethanol formation, and CH₂ and CH₃ hydrogenation for methane formation. CO dissociation does not control the overall reaction rate on Rh. The most important reaction steps that control the selectivity of ethanol over methane are CH₂ and CH₃ hydrogenation as well as CHCH₃ dehydrogenation

European Registry of Materials: global, unique identifiers for (undisclosed) nanomaterials

Data management of nanomaterials and nanosafety data needs to operate under the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) principles and this requires a unique, global identifier per nanomaterial. Existing identifiers may not always be applicable, or sufficient to definitively identify the specific nanomaterial utilised in a particular study, resulting in the use of textual descriptions in research project communications and reporting. To ensure that internal project documentation can later be linked to publicly released data and knowledge for the specific nanomaterials, or even to specific batches and variants of nanomaterials utilised in that project, a new identifier is proposed: the European Registry of Materials Identifier. We here describe the background to this new identifier, including FAIR interoperability as defined by FAIRSharing, identifiers.org and the CHEMINF ontology, how it complements other identifiers such as CAS numbers and the ongoing efforts to extend the InChI identifier to cover nanomaterials, and provide examples of its use in various H2020-funded nanosafety projects

European Registry of Materials: global, unique identifiers for (undisclosed) nanomaterials

Management of nanomaterials and nanosafety data needs to operate under the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) principles and this requires a unique, global identifier for each nanomaterial. Existing identifiers may not always be applicable or sufficient to definitively identify the specific nanomaterial used in a particular study, resulting in the use of textual descriptions in research project communications and reporting. To ensure that internal project documentation can later be linked to publicly released data and knowledge for the specific nanomaterials, or even to specific batches and variants of nanomaterials utilised in that project, a new identifier is proposed: the European Registry of Materials Identifier. We here describe the background to this new identifier, including FAIR interoperability as defined by FAIRSharing, identifiers.org, Bioregistry, and the CHEMINF ontology, and show how it complements other identifiers such as CAS numbers and the ongoing efforts to extend the InChI identifier to cover nanomaterials. We provide examples of its use in various H2020-funded nanosafety projects

European Registry of Materials:global, unique identifiers for (undisclosed) nanomaterials

Management of nanomaterials and nanosafety data needs to operate under the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) principles and this requires a unique, global identifier for each nanomaterial. Existing identifiers may not always be applicable or sufficient to definitively identify the specific nanomaterial used in a particular study, resulting in the use of textual descriptions in research project communications and reporting. To ensure that internal project documentation can later be linked to publicly released data and knowledge for the specific nanomaterials, or even to specific batches and variants of nanomaterials utilised in that project, a new identifier is proposed: the European Registry of Materials Identifier. We here describe the background to this new identifier, including FAIR interoperability as defined by FAIRSharing, identifiers.org, Bioregistry, and the CHEMINF ontology, and show how it complements other identifiers such as CAS numbers and the ongoing efforts to extend the InChI identifier to cover nanomaterials. We provide examples of its use in various H2020-funded nanosafety projects