The retrospect of 36icsc

    The 36th International Conference on Solution Chemistry (36ICSC) was held in Xining, China on August 4-8, 2019, which was organized by the Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes Chinese Academy of Sciences (QISLCAS) with Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Institute of Chemistry CAS, Institute of Process Engineering CAS, Qinghai Chemical Society as the co-organizers. 

The 36ICSCis a continuation of the successful IUPAC conference series. We set the theme of 36ICSC as ‘Solution Chemistry in action! From Fundamental Research to Large-scale Industrial Applications.’ The conference brought together scientists from all branches of solution chemistry, including both fundamental and applied sciences. The Conference covers various scientific topics, including:

A. Ionic liquids;

B. Solution thermodynamics;

C. Biology effects in solution;

D. Solubility phenomena and phase equilibria;

E. Solution structure and dynamics;

F. Supercritical fluids and solutions under extreme conditions;

G. Colloids and interfaces;

H. Computational solution chemistry;

I. General solution chemistry and industrial applications of solutions

We had more than 240 registered participants from 22 countries at the conference, with every continent represented. The 32 invited lecturers gave 5 plenary, 5 keynote and 22 invited talks; all of them are a very high standard. 30 section oral lectures were chosen from the 41 applicants, by taking the regional and gender balance into consideration. The 5 plenary and 5 keynote speakers were as follows:

Plenary Lectures:

1. Prof. Glenn Hefter (Murdoch University, Australia)

2. Prof. Buxin Han (Institute of Chemistry, CAS, China) 

3. Prof. Yoshifumi Kimura (Doshisha University, Japan)

4. Prof. Pal Sipos (Szeged, Hungary)

5. Prof. Zhijian Wu (Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)

Keynote Lectures:

1. Prof. Edgar Vargas (Bogotá, Colombia)

2. Prof. Paola D' Angelo (Universita` di Roma “La Sapienza", Italy)

3. Prof. Susumu Okazaki (Nagoya University, Japan)

4. Prof. Marie Claire Bellissent Funel (French National Centre for Scientific Research, France)

5. Prof. Jianji Wang (Henan Normal University, China)

In addition, 96 posters were presented. All the posters were evaluated strictly by five Poster assessors. 10 well done and 5 excellent posters (Prof. Earle Waghorne presented this 5 poster prizes with an extra 100 Euro book voucher, sponsored by SPRINGER) were selected. They are

Award Ceremony (Excellent)

1. Payam Kalhor (Tsinghua University, China/Iran)

2. Xiaolei Hao (Tsinghua University, China)

3. Kazuhiko Ohashi (Kyushu University, Japan) 

4. Dongdong Li (Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, CAS, China)

5. Kenzo Aki (Himeji Dokkyo University, Japan)

In order to give more chances to the young scientist, a special session for young speakers under 35 years old were set, which is the hottest session in 36 ICSC. Nearly 20 youth speakers chose this session, and we selected 10 of them as the youth forum speakers by taking the gender, research fields, and regional into consideration. Two excellent youth forum speakers were selected, they are:

Youth Forum Winners:

1. Bence Kutus (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany)

2. Shangqing Chen (Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China)

During this Conference, Prof. Glenn Heffter, the IUPAC representative to ICSC2019, gave a 10-minute talk detailing the various activities of the IUPAC, the 100th anniversary of IUPAC and the upcoming special issue in Pure and Applied Chemistry. Prof. Earle Waghorne gave a 5-minute talk detailing the upcoming special issue in Journal of Solution Chemistry.

During the conference, the International Steering Committee Meeting was held on 6thAug with Prof. Toshio Yamaguchi (The incumbent chairman of ICSC) as the Moderator. The next, 37th, ICSC will be held in 2021 in Cartagena, Columbia; the organizers gave a presentation and demonstrated that all the necessary preparations are well underway. The international steering committee hopes the ICSC2023 will attract more American participates, who are not very active in this area in recent years. Tunisia, Serbia, and Italy show their intention to becoming the potential organizer of ICSC2023. The potential organizers from Tunisia and Serbia gave presentations about their plan for ICSC2023; Italy attended as an observer. The International Steering Committee selected Belgrade, Serbia to organize the 38thICSC in 2023. Marija Bešter Rogač (female) from Slovenia was elected as the new member of the International Steering Committee of ICSC. This year, we lost two respective members of the International Steering Committee; one-minute of silence prayers were done during the open ceremony and at the beginning of International Steering Committee Meeting.

  Beyond the busy scientific schedule, the conference was rich in social events. The opening ceremony was held in QISLCAS with local government leaders as the attendees, which has been reported by 4 national media. The conference excursion included Exhibition Room of QISLCAS, Plateau biological Herbarium of Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology CAS and the Tibetan Medicine Museum of China. The conference excursion destinations are full of local characteristics i.e.Tibetan and Plateau. The banquet was held in Wanda Ream, one of the most luxurious banquet halls in Xining, where a friendly and harmony banquet and awarding ceremony has been done. 

36ICSC got adequate financial support from Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou Branch of Chinese Academy of Science, and Tianjin University of Science and Technology etc. 9 companies also contributed to this conference through commercial sponsors, they are CasMart, ASONE, Anton Paar, Metrohem, PerkinElmer, Mikrouna, IKA, Huber, and Springer. With their generous contribution, nice conference services were provided, such as free buffet for lunch and supper, free poster print service, free take/delivery service, and cash award for the poster and youth forum winners, etc. To alleviate the discomfort of delegates caused by the language difference, 20 volunteers with good English communication abilities were recruited. 

In 36ICSC, four Journals act as the academic sponsors, they issued four Special Issues for this conference, they are 

Journal of Salt Lake Research (Pre-Conference, English edition), ,http://yhyj.ijournal.cn/ch/reader/issue_list.aspx?year_id=2019&quarter_id=2), 

Pure and Applied Chemistry (Post-Conference)

https://iupac.org/etoc-alert-pure-and-applied-chemistry-october-2020/

Journal of Solution Chemistry (Post-Conference), 

https://link.springer.com/journal/10953/volumes-and-issues/50-1

 Computer and applied chemistry (Post-Conference).

https://navi.cnki.net/KNavi/JournalDetail?pcode=CJFD&pykm=JSYH&Year=&Issue=

Thus, the 36thICSC was successful on several fronts: high-quality science, interesting social programs, and nice conference services. 

Special thanks go to the Chinese Chemical Society Subcommittee on Thermodynamics and Thermal Analysis (epically Jianji Wang and Zhiwu Yu). 

Special thanks also go to the organisers from the QISLCAS (especially Changling Zhao, Hongen Nian, and Jingjing Li) and Tianjin University of Science and Technology (especially Tianlong Deng, the co-chairman of 36ICSC) and to the contributing members of the Solution Structure Research Group at QISLCAS: Dengke Pang, Guangguo Wang, and Zhuanfang Jing.