PSI.COM at PSE 2026

Project member Luís Marques attended the 20th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE2026), Trade Fair Erfurt (August 31 – September 3 2026, Erfurt, Germany).
We delivered a talk Modelling ammonia production in N₂-H₂ DC discharges and presented a poster The LisbOn KInetics Global Model (LoKI-GM) for plasma chemistry studies.

Participation in PSE2026 marks the conclusion of the presentation of PSI.COM results during project's implementation. Team members will continue to disseminate the project's scientific results even after PSI.COM has concluded.

Public release of LoKI-GM

The N-PRiME group (N-Plasmas Reactive: Modelling and Engineering) of IPFN has publicly released the LisbOn Kinetics Global Model (LoKI-GM), an open-source simulation framework for the modelling of low-temperature plasmas (LTPs). The software was officially launched during the 27th Europhysics Conference on Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases (ESCAMPIG 2026), held in Funchal, Madeira.

LoKI-GM enables researchers to simulate the behaviour of pure gases and gas mixtures under a wide range of operating conditions (glow DC/HF, post-discharge, pulsed), providing a self-consistent description of plasma chemistry and transport processes. The framework combines two complementary modules: LoKI-B, an electron Boltzmann solver that describes electron kinetics, and LoKI-C, a chemistry solver that models the kinetics of charged and neutral species in both the gas volume and at surfaces. The two modules can operate either independently or in a fully coupled manner.

Developed in MATLAB as part of the LisbOn KInetics (LoKI) suite, LoKI-GM v26.07 is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, making it freely available to the international scientific community of LTPs.
The current release supports steady-state, quasi-stationary and post-discharge simulations. It includes comprehensive electron-impact cross-section databases for all gases available in the IST-Lisbon database of the open-access website LXCat, a broad set of reaction-rate coefficient models, chemistry schemes for oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen plasmas, and extensive user documentation in both PDF and HTML formats.

The development of LoKI-GM will continue, to expand its capabilities and extend the range of plasma configurations and physical processes that it can address.

Final Annual Meeting 2026 of PSI.COM

The project annual meeting was held on July 7, 2026, in Colégio dos Jesuítas (Funchal, Madeira).
The meeting was attended by team members JP Booth, M Budde, M Lino da Silva, L Marques, P Pereira, N Pinhão, CD Pintassilgo, O Guaitella and LL Alves, and by consultants A Tejero-del-Caz and V Guerra.
Different team members delivered presentations, on the overview of tasks and the execution of the project; the status of experimental diagnostics; the modelling results and the validation of the final chemical scheme proposed; and a final discussion aiming the preparation of a journal paper.

PSI.COM at GEC 2025

Project members attended the 78th Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference (GEC) (13-17 October 2025, Seoul, Republic of Korea).
We presented posters Plasma-surface coupled modelling of N₂-H₂ DC discharges for ammonia production (SBaghel), Electron collision cross sections for H2 and NH3 relevant to N₂-H₂ plasma modelling (SBaghel), The LisbOn KInetics LoKI-B+C simulation tool (LLAlves) and Electron kinetics description with combined stochastic and Ohmic Fokker-Planck heating operator (LLAlves).
The conference was an occasion to show the last results of project PSI.COM and to interact with several colleagues from the low-temperature plasmas community.

LoKI-B++ released as part of PLASIMO

On October 1st, Plasma Matters B.V. (PM) celebrated its 10th anniversary releasing PLASIMO 10.0, demonstrating the growth of this versatile platform for plasma modelling.
PLASIMO 10 now offers built-in support for LoKI-B++, to self-consistently calculate electron energy distribution functions for the Global Model and the Drift-Diffusion model.

Coincidently with the release of PLASIMO 10, v25.10 of LoKI-B and LoKI-B++ (the very first one, in the case of the C++ code) were also released.
LoKI-B++ is a C++ counterpart of MATLAB’s LoKI-B, replicating essentially all of its original features. Both LoKI-B and LoKI-B++ are part of the LoKI tool suite and are freely available at https://github.com/LoKI-suite, for users to perform electron kinetics calculations, and for modelers / developers who are invited to continue testing the tool and/or to contribute for its development and improvement.

The LisbOn KInetics Suite is developed by the Portuguese group N-Plasmas Reactive: Modelling and Engineering (N-PRiME) of Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear with Instituto Superior Técnico, the Departamento de Física of Facultad de Ciencias with Universidad de Córdoba and the group Elementary Processes in Gas Discharges (EPG) of the Eindhoven University of Technology which was responsible for the development of LoKI-B++.

Modelling NH₃ density

After extensive hard work, the team has achieved the result presented in the figure, showing reasonable good agreement between measurements and simulations for the ammonia density at various hydrogen concentrations.
The measurements were obtained from in-situ FTIR at the Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (Palaiseau, France), and the simulations used the LisbOn KInetics (LoKI) simulation tool with the 18^th version of a Chemistry Scheme for N₂-H₂ plasmas.
The working conditions are for a cylindrical DC plasma (no catalytic-walls), with 1cm radius and 54cm length, at pressures 199.5Pa and 665Pa, 40mA discharge current, and 7.4sccm gas flow.

Web-based calculations using LoKI-B++

The C++ version of LoKI-B++ is now accessible through a standalone tool that allows users to perform web-based calculations. Each simulation generates a unique address containing a specific identifier for the input file.
This ensures that the exact same input conditions and cross-section data - obtained automatically through LXCat 3.0 - can be preserved and shared, enabling full reproducibility of the simulation.
Check THIS LINK to run swarm simulations in air.

PSI.COM at ICPIG 2025

Project members attended the XXXVI International Conference on Phenomena in Ionized Gases (ICPIG) (20-25 July 2025, Aix-en-Provence, France).
We presented posters Modeling of N₂-H₂ DC discharges for ammonia production (LL Alves), Cross sections for H₂ and NH₃ relevant to N₂-H₂ plasma modelling (S Baghel), Progress report on the LoKI-B+C simulation tool (P Pereira) and Recent advances in reproducible plasma simulation: LXCat 3.0 and LoKI-B++ (D Boer, P Pereira, LL Alves).
The conference was an occasion to show the last results of project PSI.COM and to interact with several colleagues from the low-temperature plasmas community.

Annual meeting 2025 of PSI.COM

The project annual meeting was held on June 18, 2025.
The meeting was attended by team members S Baghel, JP Booth, A Gonçalves, M Lino da Silva, L Marques, P Pereira, N Pinhão, O Guaitella and LL Alves, and consultants A Tejero-del-Caz, V Guerra and E Carbone.
Different team members delivered presentations, on the overview of tasks; the evolution of LoKI in terms of workflow, toolbox, and inputs with JSON and GUI; the status of experimental diagnostics and of modelling; the development of ML tools for the reduction of chemistry schemes; and a final extended discussion, also on the preparation of scientific output.

PSI.COM joins MakerIST 2025

PSI.COM was present at MakerIST, an event jointly organised by the HackerSchool and Lounge IST that celebrated maker culture, bringing together enthusiasts of creation, technology, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY).
Luís L. Alves and Pedro Pereira participated in this event on June 4 at the Main Building of IST, where they presented the LisbOn KInetics (LoKI) code.
The presence of PSI.COM at MakerIST highlights the growing relevance of open-source tools in scientific research and education. The event was organised in a dynamic space for learning, sharing and creative experimentation, open to both the academic community and the general public.

LoKI-B at PLASIMO

The next release of software PLASIMO with Plasma Matters will feature the C++ version of LoKI-B as embedded Boltzmann solver.
The announcement was made during the Europhysics Conference on Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases (ESCAMPIG) (9-13 July 2024, Brno, Czech Republic), where Plasma Matters was present with an exhibition booth.

PSI.COM at ESCAMPIG 2024

Project members attended the Europhysics Conference on Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases (ESCAMPIG) (9-13 July 2024, Brno, Czech Republic).
We presented posters The LisbOn KInetics LoKI-B+C simulation tool (LL Alves), Plasma-surface coupled modelling of ammonia production in DC discharges (S Baghel), and The 2024 status report on the LXCat project (LL Alves et al.).
We have also delivered the plenary lecture Global modelling of non-equilibrium low-temperature plasmas (LL Alves), where we have highlighted the development of LoKI and its future release as open-source code (tentative date 2025), as well as presented first results of the modelling of N₂-H₂ plasmas.
The conference was an occasion to interact with several colleagues from the low-temperature plasmas community.

Annual meeting PSI.COM

The project annual meeting was held on July 1, 2024.
The meeting was attended by team members S Baghel, JP Booth, D Ferreira, M Lino da Silva, L Marques, J Martins, P Pereira, N Pinhão, O Guaitella and LL Alves, by consultants A Tejero-del-Caz, V Guerra and E Carbone, and by student A Henriques.
Different team members delivered presentations, on the overview of tasks; the evolution of LoKI in terms of workflow, output, and the development of utilities; the status of modelling and of experimental diagnostics; a review of hydrogen cross sections; the development of ML tools for the reduction of chemistry schemes; and the status of LXCat.
Each presentation was followed by a lively extended discussion.

Visit of J van Dijk and D Boer to Lisbon

Jan van Dijk and Daan Boer (TU/e) visited IPFN/IST from June 24-27, 2024.
The visit marked a significant step in the preparation for the joint release of the LoKI-B C++ and new MATLAB versions as open-source software. The work focused on aligning the features of both versions to ensure consistency and functionality.
We have also discussed the integration of LoKI-B with the upcoming LXCat 3.0 open-access database. Scheduled for a tentative release in October, the new database will include capabilities for storing plasma chemistry mechanisms.
This collaboration underscores the ongoing commitment to advancing plasma research through open-source tools and comprehensive data integration.

Start of meetings on LXCat

We have started regular meetings with colleagues from TU/e to follow the progress in the development of LXCat 3.0 and the connections to the LoKI tool.
The aim is to contribute to the development of a high-performance open-access data-storage library extending from cross sections to plasma chemistry.

State-of-the art GPU installed and running

Our new NVIDIA RTX™ 6000 of the Ada Lovelace Generation is now installed and running in a workstation to be used in project simulations.
The RTX 6000 combines third-generation RT cores, fourth-generation Tensor Cores, and CUDA® cores with 48 GB of graphics memory to deliver unprecedented graphics, rendering, and AI performance.

PSI.COM at the International School on Atomic and Molecular Data Evaluation and Curation

We presented a poster about the Lisbon KInetics (LoKI) tools and data at the first International School on Atomic and Molecular Data Evaluation and Curation (October 2023, Valladolid, Spain).
The school was an occasion to interact with members from the Atomic and Molecular Physics community, and in particular to discuss good practices for data / metadata standards and for data sharing via databases.

Kick-off meeting of PSI.COM

The project kick-off meeting was held on July 4, 2023.
The meeting was attended by team members JP Booth, D Ferreira, L Marques, M Lino da Silva, N Pinhão, O Guaitella and LL Alves, and consultants A Tejero-del-Caz, V Guerra and Emile Carbone.
The meeting was organized with different presentations by the team members, to introduce the project, discuss the available experimental diagnostics, report on the current status of the LoKI simulation tool and the kinetic scheme, discuss possible ML approaches for sensitivity studies and chemistry schemes reduction, and introduce preliminary ideas on the organization of the LoKI data.
Each presentation was followed by a lively extended discussion.

Call for Post-Doctoral Fellowship

Applications are open for one Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship within PSI.COM.
The call is open until 31st August 2023.
Details at EURAXESS-JOB100954

Participation in FAIR and OS webinar

We have participated in the webinar "How can academic publishing support FAIR and OS ?", where data science and physical science experts shared experiences and explored solutions to common barriers in ensuring data meet principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR), and Open Science (OS).

Preparation of the launch of PSI.COM project

PSI.COM will be launched in March 2023. We are preparing all administrative requirements and actively seeking a postdoctoral candidate.