Open Research Europe presents an interview with Dr. Imad El Haddad, head of the Molecular Cluster and Particle Processes research group at Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) and Gateway Advisor of the Analytical Chemistry Community Gateway on Open Research Europe.

This Community Gateway brings together experimental and theoretical research that involves quantitative analysis (to determine certain features of an unknown substance, such as melting point and solubility) and/or qualitative analysis (to determine the amount of a particular chemical or element within a substance).

Read on to find out more about the Analytical Chemistry Community Gateway and our Guest Advisor.

What is your research area and how does it relate to the Analytical Chemistry Community Gateway?

I’m an environmental scientist with a particular focus on atmospheric chemistry, especially the complex atmospheric organic matrix.

Millions of unknown compounds make up this matrix, with concentrations ranging from a few parts per quadrillion (ppq) to few parts per billion (ppb) in the atmosphere. It’s generated through direct emissions, e.g., from evaporation of plants or combustion processes, and complex radical reactions in the atmosphere that produce a wide range of oxygenated species – similar to an organic chemistry experiment gone wrong.

I develop novel analytical techniques to analyze this matrix in the field and in the laboratory to identify its sources, chemical formation, and transformation processes. Analytical chemistry is in the center of what I do.

What are the biggest challenges of being a researcher in your field?

One of the biggest challenges from an analytical chemistry point of view is the online, real-time sampling, analysis, separation, and identification of single molecules in the gas, solid or ionic phases, while avoiding the occurrence of ionization or sampling induced artefacts – this means errors introduced to a sample during sample preparation.

What are the major questions your research area tries to answer?

In my specific field, we want to understand the impact of aerosols on our climate and health.

Aerosols are tiny particles suspended in the air and they cool our climate by interacting with the sunlight or forming clouds, unlike greenhouse gases.

However, it’s also estimated that over 4 million deaths every year are caused by aerosols, which is higher than the death burden of COVID-19 – as we’ve also seen from the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, some viruses are mainly transmitted through an aerosol route.

We develop analytical techniques to understand the chemical composition of these aerosols and how they evolve in the atmosphere to ultimately understand their impacts on health and climate.

Why is open science important to you and researchers in your field?

Open science in atmospheric chemistry and physics is essential and the scientific collaboration in this field is known to be one of the strongest compared to other fields of research.

For example, ambient observations are often made publicly available for other scientists to validate their models. Sometimes this is even done through official routes, e.g., European programs for continuous monitoring such as ACTRIS, the aerosols, clouds and trace gases research infrastructure.

Granting open access to our publications and data significantly increases collaboration amongst other scientists from our field.

Are there any challenges to participating in open science within your research area?

Our field is generally ready to move towards open science and we have made a tremendous amount of progress in this regard.

There is still work to be done, for example standardizing the ways we share different levels of data and computer codes, but my biggest concern is related to publishing in other journals that are not fully open access.

These journals often ask for high fees to make the articles open access, which is a heavy financial burden that is increasingly not covered by research funds and will especially hurt small or young research groups, particularly in developing countries.

My hope would be that we see an increasing move towards open access across both the academic publishing community and the wider scientific community.

Discover research in the Analytical Chemistry Community Gateway

Some of the recent impactful work published within the Analytical Chemistry Community Gateway include:

• A Method Article by Ronan et al. that details a method of identifying sulphur particles using Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy.

• A Research Article by Bhowal et al. which describes a novel experimental technique for detecting magnetoelectric multiple moments using high-energy X-ray beams. Find out more about the article in this Research Spotlight, an interview with the authors that explores their research and motivations for working with Open Research Europe.

Explore more of the Analytical Chemistry Community Gateway today.