The 6th Asian Symposium on Advanced Materials: Chemistry, Physics and Biomedicine of Functional and Novel Materials (ASAM-6; Hanoi, Vietnam, September 27–30, 2017)

The Asian Symposium on Advanced Materials: Chemistry, Physics & Biomedicine of Functional and Novel Materials (ASAM) is a bi-annual symposium which is organized by the cooperation of eminent materials scientists in Asian countries. The ASAM symposa are intended as a forum for interdisciplinary discussion between scientists and engineers from Asian universities, research institutions and companies, who are investigating or are concerned with advanced materials. Such materials can serve for improving and developing chemical engineering, nanotechnology, microelectronics, optics, environmental science and biomedical technologies; they are concerned with improving human health and quality of life. In particular, one of the main philosophies of ASAM is to stimulate and encourage graduate students and young researchers in the field of materials science by providing them with opportunities to interact with eminent materials scientists in the world as well as in Asian countries.

The symposium organizers brought together many influential intellectual leaders, top scientists, and local young scientists to discuss the hottest topics, the best practical applications and more.

The symposium topics included:

1. The fundamental science of materials

2. Materials in energy science

3. Materials in environmental science

4. Materials in biomedical science

5. Multidisciplinary materials, and

6. Miscellaneous.

The first ASAM was held at Vladivostok, Russia in 2007. Since then, four more symposia have been held at: Shanghai, China in 2009; Fukuoka, Japan in 2011; Taipei, Taiwan in 2013; and Busan, Korea in 2015. Following the previous ASAM, the 6th ASAM (ASAM-6) was held in Hanoi, Vietnam from September 27 to 30, 2017.

ASAM-6 consisted of four plenary talks, 15 keynote talks, 19 invited talks, 35 oral talks and 88 poster presentations. About 200 participants attended ASAM-6 from 13 countries including Korea, China, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, the UK, the USA, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Brunei as well as Vietnam. The majority of the participants were from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, China, and Vietnam.

It was important that many Asian graduate students actively participated in the poster presentations, as there were very good opportunities to make new international friends from abroad as well as to learn the state of the art in the field of materials science. There were seven poster presentation awards (two first awards, two second awards, and three third awards) for young researchers under 35 years of age or graduate students who presented excellent poster papers. The poster presentations also covered a variety of materials for various research applications in fundamental physics, chemistry, and biomedicine. Such advanced applications included secondary batteries, solar cells, catalysts, biodegradable or eco-friendly materials, drug delivery systems, biosensing, gas adsorption, and heavy metal ion monitoring.

Some of the selected and reviewed papers from ASAM-6 are published in this special issue of Green Processing and Synthesis. We hope that all attendees of ASAM-6 found the conference informative and worthwhile and we hope to see you again at the ASAM-7 symposium, which will be held in Beijing, China in the fall of 2019.