Wow, in February 2026, AFIN-TS will already be eight years old and continues to represent a small, consulting company that is now firmly established in the market. Although the perceived (and sometimes real) situation in the chemical industry in 2025 was generally assessed as rather negative, we were even able to expand our support in consulting and implementation of applied non-target screening. This is a good sign that even in bad times, new (and forward-looking) thinking is taking place. We have already observed a similar phenomenon in our sector during the Corona-years. Our core topic, ‘mass spectrometric non-target screening (NTS)’, but also instrumental analysis with polarity-extended chromatography and mass spectrometry, is in tune with the spirit of the times, which is moving away from exclusive (quantitative) analysis (of known molecules) towards new (qualitative and semi-quantitative) analysis (of initially unknown molecules). In 2025, we continued to publish literature for the chemical industry (German version), but also increasingly for the interested public and various specialist areas (see links below in ‘Publications’). The implementation of modern concepts such as PMT / vPvM, but also NIAS and L&E including the new questions they raise, requires a rethinking of analytical strategy. NTS (and our approaches to it) provides sustainable (because retrospectively usable) answers in each case. Here we research, publish, train, and help partners (in their and our laboratories) in line with the motto ‘with NTS you can answer questions that have never been asked before‘. After the ‘slowed-down’ pandemic years and 2022 with its massive restrictions on our laboratory operations (due to the renovation of our start-up center and the associated – and thus adverse-  circumstances for us) the number of requests that could be processed fortunately rose steadily again in 2023, reaching a maximum in 2024 with over 3000 NTS measurements in our Augsburg laboratory, which remained stable at a high level in 2025. Some research initiatives were successfully completed in 2025, while others are still ongoing and three new ones were launched. In 2025, new topics were explored again, so that new research projects in NTS – especially with digital aim – can also be expected in 2026. Furthermore, our consulting activities also stabilized in 2025, enabling us to win over additional laboratories for NTS consulting in the short, medium, and long term, in addition to our long-established customers/partners. The interested laboratories came mainly from the fields of clinical analysis, food analysis, leachables & extractables analysis, pharmaceutical analysis, environmental analysis, and chemical process analysis, both in the industrial and commercial analytical environment and in the regulatory sector.

Our HIVE platform, which has been in development for more than two years, also got off to a good start. This platform makes analytical data from instrumental analysis and the resulting NTS data machine-readable and AI-accessible for data-handling machine-learning tools and AI solutions. In 2025, the platform developed into a holistic network in combination with quantitative analytics and is now also being used in this area.

And last but not least, our ICNTS 25: The hybrid conference attracted more than 200 visitors for the first time and was a complete success with more than 15 supporting partner institutions (LinkedIn post) in the Erding City Hall. The conference stimulated a lot of technical discussion around 12 keynote lectures, 48 presentations, and 51 posters, resulting in many new ideas until the next ICNTS in October 2027. The Lifetime Achievement Award in NTS 2025 (LinkedIn post) was presented to Juliane Hollender and the Poster Awards (LinkedIn post) went to Ingrida Bagdonaitė, Giulia Martella, and Nicola Montemurro, as well as Daniel Höhn and Kas Houthuijs.

In 2025, we were once again fortunate to process many interesting samples, answer analytical questions, and explore new topics for the future.
We hope this trend will continue in 2026 and look forward to lively exchanges on topics such as ‘Applied NTS’.

Research

The first major AFIN-TS research projects, Bee2Diversity and RIKovery, were successfully completed in spring 2025.

Both consortia led our small company into new applied areas for modern NTS. NTS approaches were established from both initiatives; on the one hand, for the comparative analysis of bee pollen-containing samples and flower samples, and on the other hand, for the monitoring of industrial wastewater processes (including those with high salt loads).
Summaries of our respective areas of work are as follows in the respective final reports:

1) As part of the Bee2Diversity project, AFIN-TS developed a novel approach in the corresponding sub-area using mass spectrometric non-target screening (NTS) for the molecular fingerprinting of bee-borne pollen extracts, the resulting classification of sampled plants, and pollen matching with other analytical techniques in the project (such as microscopy by Sykam and next-generation sequencing by the University of Giessen). In addition, a large number of flowering plants were recorded and, as a result, the seasonal biodiversity of the flora was determined at the level of the corresponding molecular pollen metabolomes and its integration into the results was discussed. Flowering flowers were sampled directly and their flower extracts measured in order to obtain real data for analysis and for comparison with bee-collected pollen pellets. The final data from all laboratories was then compiled in an app or browser interface created for the project and prepared for projects and assignments following Bee2Diversity.

2) The analytics to be developed in the RIKovery project and those of the specific workflow for the use and evaluation of NTS data from saline samples were successfully established and (partially) automated. Due to its rapid and significant success (particularly with the desalination strategy; see also publications in 2023 and 2024), real-world industrial implementation began during the project period, making it realistic to expect the technology to be sustainably established by the end of the project. For example, the RIKovery consortium subsequently successfully used NTS as a routine analysis method. Since then, this NTS routine analysis of saline samples has been used directly in analog applications in other disciplines (such as seawater analysis, analysis of saline foods, or urine). In addition to establishing and applying NTS analytics, new digital solutions (German version) were developed, but existing data analytics solutions—such as the ‘FOR-IDENT platform for identifying unexpected, unrecognized, and unknown substances, which was previously developed with BMBF support and stored in Innovationsatlas Wasser‘ were also consistently further developed and used. In addition to scientific publications on industrial water testing, further publications were produced in various disciplines (see also below under Publications) and led to new business areas. The managing directors were able to establish this technology not only in terms of personnel but also, and above all, institutionally with . In AFIN-TS, these and other findings are now being communicated to commercial and non-commercial institutions in training courses, consultations, and scientific collaborations on the topic of “non-target screening of high-salinity samples.” This ensures that these technologies and the state of knowledge can be used both (as before) in the scientific sector and in non-scientific analytical areas. In addition to the FOR-IDENT platform supported by the project, the established and stabilized open-access e-learning platform Analytics+ which was developed in earlier BMBF projects, has also been further maintained and is used free of charge by students, vocational school pupils, and other interested parties. All platforms mentioned here continue to be under the current supervision (and, for the most part, financing) of AFIN-TS GmbH and are to be sustainably established digitally in the future in the form of an association. For further results, please refer to earlier publications on the AFIN-TS homepage (under the “Literature” tab).
Do you have a need for NTS in this area? We have been offering established NTS products in both sectors since 2025; please feel free to inquire.

We are pleased to have continued to support the iMolch– consortium—funded by the BMFTR (formerly BMBF) funding measure LURCH: Sustainable Groundwater Management—in 2025 with our NTS expertise and routine NTS analysis in measurement campaigns. This data, based on indicator and analysis concepts contributes new insights into water management (e.g., through bank filtration) and we are excited to see how things progress. We wish the consortium continued success and insightful investigations and modeling in its final year. We, too, continue to measure groundwater from a wide variety of sources, as the topic of PMT and vPvM

which we took up over five years ago, is currently in high demand and is finding new answers with NTS.

Three research initiatives launched in 2024 were worked on in 2025 and are some already concluded.

For example, in the approved application for the Digitalbonus funding program, we worked with our colleagues from the Fraunhofer Institute ISC -Digital on a new digital product, the so-called NTS-HIVE , and created a prototype or demonstrator based on OpenSemanticLab by mid-2025. In the same year, we successfully submitted a new application to the Digitalbonus Plus funding program and are now starting to focus on “Intelligent data analysis to improve operational results” and “Modern simulation methods and digital twins.” These approaches are currently being developed for our own laboratory, after which they will be institutionally established, validated, and complemented in order to bring this machine-readable and ‘AI-ready’ data strategy to commercial, governmental, and university laboratories on a broad scale.

We are particularly pleased to be able to contribute our NTS expertise for the use and reuse of industrial water to the BayWater consortium – funded by the Bayerische Forschungsstiftung– together with our former place of work, the Technical University of Munich.
And we are also delighted to continue to introduce doctoral students to the non-target screening approach and provide them with further training as a training partner in the MobiliTraIN project – which is funded under the European Union Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

As in previous years, we made our experience and insights available to various initiatives and committees in 2025. Among other things, we continued to support the follow-up work on the IGF project No. 21309 N – “ComScreen“, which was completed in 2023, the follow-up work on the IGF project No. 21954 N – “DA-EDA“, which was completed in 2024, as well as the FH cooperative project “DeepAuthent” in its final year, and more recently also the DATIpilot project “CoffeeFermentomics” (in each case ideel, with consulting and self-financed analysis data) so that these consortia can translate their developments into products in a targeted manner.

We also continued to participate in technical committees and analytical bodies, such as the “Non-Target” technical committee in the field of analytics and ‘Persistent Mobile und Toxic Compounds’ in the field of emissions (both in the Water Chemical Society of the GDCh), the BP4NTA consortium and the DIN working group NA 119-09-02-16/3 AK AK Non-Target Screening working group and a similar ISO committee. We are very active in all of these and are getting closer and closer to standardizing NTS. The NTS guideline is another good example. The updated guideline on the topic ‘NTS in Water‘ was published in 2025 and continues to be very well received in the field. Consequently, the DIN/ISO standard based on it can be expected in this year or in the coming years at the latest.

Publications

The eighth year, i.e. 2025, was another very productive year for us in terms of publications. The number of articles in so-called on-the-bench journals remained consistently high, but we continued to publish both ‘scientific’ (including increased citations, see LinkedIn post) and ‘popular science’ articles in parallel. Together with our presence at specialist events (see also below under ‘Conferences’), we continue to achieve the desired dissemination of knowledge about our routine-ready concepts of polarity-enhanced chromatography and modern non-target screening in laboratories of various orientations. For example, there was a scientific research article together with the Bavarian LfU and TUM (on PFAS screening in municipal wastewater effluents and mixed liquor – using TOP assay as a sum parameter  and the review article Bridging knowledge gaps in human chemical exposure via drinking water with non-target screening which was finally published in 2025.

At the conclusion of the RIKovery project, we published the above-mentioned new digitalisation strategy (German version) , in the cross-cutting topic together with all initiatives, but also, together with our analytical colleagues within the project, further summary and subject-oriented analysis concepts for (highly) saline industrial wastewater: 1) Recycling of industrial saline waters using ion separation, concentration, and intelligent monitoring (GWA Abwasser; 02/2025, German version), 2) General concepts for the analysis of organic compounds in saline waters 3) Analytical approaches in the RIKovery project 4) Target- and Non-Target-Analysis in highly saline process waters (German version),

A German publication that attracted particular attention was the article in the GDCh member magazine entitled ‘‘Rethinking Analysis (German version)‘.

And in the fall, we actively began communicating our ideas on the retrospective use of NTS data in a German publication and in English version. Togethter with the above-mentioned poster and a recorded presentation on the NTS-HIVE platform at the Sciex user meeting (on this youtube video) we will now not only use and further develop NTS-HIVE in our laboratory, but also establish the idea in a sustainable and individual way at interested institutions (that are starting to use NTS or already practice it. The latter in particular appreciate the combination of active data (NTS and quantitative) and interactive reporting.

Professional Training

In 2025, various certificate courses and seminars in the fields of LC-MS, mass spectrometry, DoE, and polar molecules were held in cooperation with Springer Campus. These were again attended by numerous participants in the 3×3 hour format both in the spring (Wednesdays; German) and in the fall (Mondays; German). As a successful format, we will continue these flexible seminars in 2026 and beyond (and now offer them individually in English on request).

For the first time, we were present together with Dichrom at LabSupply in Frankfurt and Leverkusen and were able to actively contribute to our special topics with the following presentations: ‘HILIC – Chromatography for highly polar molecules: Basic use of stationary phases’ (Frankfurt) and ‘SFC – Chromatography (with CO2) for highly polar molecules: Basic use of stationary phases’. We are particularly pleased that the presentations were very well received despite the many alternatives available on site. We are therefore continuing to plan together to continue this knowledge transfer (also on behalf of Dichrom) in 2026. Together, we are raising awareness of ‘POLAR ANALYTICS’ in laboratories and offering solid solutions.

Furthermore, numerous multi-day in-house training courses on non-target screening were held in 2025 in industrial, university, and government laboratories. The primary interest continued to be in professional water analysis and E&L analysis in various polymer and plastic analyses. However, other disciplines are also becoming increasingly open to this type of analysis. In 2025, for example, interest in the topics of NIAS and chemical and pharmaceutical process monitoring continued to grow (see also below under Conferences) and demand increased (but was also implemented).
We provide manufacturer-independent training, but also involve experts from the respective equipment manufacturer in the establishment process if required. The same applies to implementation and training in data analysis and statistics.

In 2025, our promising in-house training and continuing education concepts (and those within the framework of the AGBB of the GdCH) once again produced many new and sustainable developments for prospective and qualified CTAs and chemical laboratory assistants. For example, the AGBB of the GDCh maintains a training atlas for non-academic training, in which educational institutions can register and trainees can search for opportunities. The specialized continuing education of non-academically trained employees from partner companies in our NTS environment was a focus of our communication in 2025 (see the last chapter of this publication) and is currently leading to a rethinking of the qualification of our own laboratory staff (especially in the recognition of digital possibilities and the establishment of AI). Some of our activities can be read about in our own publication merger or in the current “revealing” review of a study on “Further training in the chemical scene (German version).” At the end of 2024, Thomas Letzel stepped down as long-time chairman of the AGBB, but continued to be heard as a guest on the board in 2025.

Conferences

One of our passion projects, the International Conference on Non-Target Screening, i.e., ICNTS25, took place on October 13-16, 2025, in a hybrid format, i.e., in Erding near Munich and digitally, and was, as described at the beginning, a complete success.
In addition, we actively participated in several scientific events to share our knowledge. With titles such as “Non-Target Screening New Insights into Complex Samples” at the “Symposium and Online Lecture Series Interdisciplinary Modern Analytics Innovative Use of Analytical Methods” organized by the Analytik Netzwerk, ‘The Koskino filter system removal of grinding sludge from process water and its non-target analysis‘ together with our partner KOSKINO at the meeting of the Working Group on Microcontaminants of the Umweltcluster Bayern, and ‘An introduction to the analytical process in NTS‘ in the Webinar: Breaking Down Barriers with Non-Target Screening,, ‘Digital Solutions in the Food Sector and its Non-Target Analytics‘ at SFSM 2025 organized by the Swiss Society for Food Chemistry (SFC), as well as ‘Retrospective data evaluation and data handling in NTS‘ at AFWC 2025 , we were once again on the international road in 2025.
A new area of presentation also opened up for us in the field of E&L from polymers and in various plastic matrices. We attended the “New Regulation in EU Plastics Regulation‘” in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and gave a presentation entitled “Non-target analysis of PET bottles differentiation between bottles with PET recyclate and without PET recyclate” at the 14th International Akademie Fresenius Conference ” Residues of Food Contact Materials in Food‘ ” in D sseldorf, Germany.
It was also a special experience last year to be able to set many topics and discuss NTS with an international audience at events such as HPLC 2025 in Bruges, NTAFF 2025 -an RSC event- in London, and the Langenauer Wasserforum. Talks in the order of the meetings were ‘Modern chromatography for non-target screening  and (statistical) data handling concepts (LinkedIn blog)’ (plus an SFC poster with Shimadzu), ‘Modern chromatographic techniques for comprehensive non-target screening applications‘ and posters ‘Retrospective data evaluation and data handling in Non-Target Screening‘ng ‘ and ‘PINTS 24 Initiative – (Data evaluation) PIpelines in NTS‘.
All these events enabled us to learn new things in analytical chemistry, discuss NTS, and present our work.

NTS Contract Analysis in the ‘Augsburg Laboratory’

Fortunately, in 2025 we were once again able to fully utilize our own laboratory capacities and, with the NTS system purchased in 2023, we were able to make full use of the potential of this device again after 2024. This enabled us to process many existing and new inquiries and products with more than 3,000 measurements, thereby opening up topics from research, suppliers and disposal companies, authorities, and industry.
Since 2024, we have been offering our own NTS products for the analysis of foodstuffs (such as coffee and juice) and packaging materials, as well as wastewater monitoring, saline industrial water monitoring, and flower and bee pollen analysis for the determination of biodiversity. In 2025, we expanded our concepts and strategies to help customers with inquiries in chemical, biotechnical, food processing, and pharmaceutical monitoring. Individual analyses are also possible (and can be conducted confidentially if desired).
We would like to take this opportunity to once again express our special thanks to all our partners and customers for their trust in our work and in the results we deliver often unconventional (which may seem a little nebulous at first, but quickly become clearer with each conversation and the information provided by both sides).
In 2026, we will continue at the same pace and intensity as usual.

Partners

Last year, we continued to work closely with our partners offering SFC-MS, LC-MS, and GC-MS, and we would like to thank them on our partner page. We look forward to working with these and other manufacturers in the coming year to support their customers at NTS and, last but not least, to take 25 more steps together into the future of non-target screening at ICNTS.

Outlook

In 2026, we will complete a number of research projects, while others will continue and still others will be launched. We look forward to working with our proven partners as well as new interested parties in establishing and utilizing instrumental analytics, not least in non-target screening, so that NTS becomes known and, above all, used across all disciplines.

Training and education in other instrumental analysis technologies will also continue, ensuring that there are still competent laboratory staff in the various institutions who can do more than just ‘push buttons’.

You will see and speak to us again in 2026 at many trade fairs (such as Analytica and the IFAT in Munich), conferences (such as MWAS in Mülheim), and conventions (such as Wasser 2026). We are announcing this here and look forward to seeing you.

But there is still plenty of time to provide you with expert advice, support, training, and an introduction to NTS and other analysis strategies. That’s a promise! :-)

Last but not least, we wish you all a happy and healthy 2026 and hope to see you all digitally, live, and above all, discussing NTS.