Identifying International Chemical Identifier (InChI) Enhancements – QR Codes and Industry Applications

Identifying International Chemical Identifier (InChI) Enhancements—QR Codes and Industry Applications

IUPAC Project 2015-019-2-800

Chair: Richard M Hartshorn

Objective: The International Chemical Identifier (InChI) is a text string that encodes chemical structure and provides a means to search databases for the structure. The InChI Trust <www.inchi-trust.org> is examining development of a QR code (2D bar code) version of the InChI. This project aims to consult with industry/regulatory sector users to identify and prioritise additional information that could/should be included in the QR code to enhance the value and commercial utility of the QR InChI. Possibilities to be evaluated and elaborated upon include: health/safety information (hazard code and/or safety data URL); catalog code; batch number; inventory information; sample composition/purity.

This project is complementary to another user-focused project that is developing InChI for states and mixtures. That project is about the specificity and usefulness of the information being encoded in the InChI, while this one will focus on deployment and use at scale with key stakeholders globally.