The 8^th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry, 9–14 September 2018 – Bangkok (Thailand)

The 8^th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry was held during September 9–14, 2018 at Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand, with the theme as “Green for Sustainable Growth: Chemistry, Scaling up, Economic, Regulation, Innovation and Education”. The conference was organized by the Chemical Society of Thailand, and the Thai Institute of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, in conjunction with Chulalongkorn University and Kasetsart University, under the auspices of IUPAC and FACS. The goal of this conference is to bring together the scientific, technological, industrial and policy-development communities dealing with green chemistry.

The conference was composed of one pre-conference workshop, 4 core sessions, 2 symposia, 2 special sessions, and 1 panel discussion.

The pre-conference workshop entitled “Integrating Green Chemistry in Higher Education” on September 9, 2018 at Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University. The aim of the workshop is to review the basic concepts and provide the examples on green chemistry in the curriculum, as well as its practices through two hands-on activities; paper centrifuge and atom economy.

The opening ceremony was presided over by Christopher Brett, IUPAC Vice-president; Pietro Tundo, President of IUPAC Interdivisional Committee on Green Chemistry for Sustainable Development; John Corish, Chair of the PhosAgro/UNESCO/IUPAC International Jury for Green Chemistry; Supa Hannongbua, President of Chemical Society of Thailand. After the welcome remark delivered by Supawan Tantayanon, Chair of the 8^th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry, the conference was declared open by Nicole Moreau, IUPAC Past President.

There were 3 plenary lectures, “Design and Applications of Selective Reactions of Olefins” delivered by Robert H. Grubbs, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 2005, “Welcome to Small Spaces – Soft Crystalline Polymers” by Susumu Kitagawa, Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study, Japan; and “Conversion of Biomass and CO2 into Value-Added Chemicals and fuels” by Buxing Han, Chinese Academy of Science, Republic of China.

We had 10 keynote lectures, 28 invited lectures, 108 oral presentations and 106 poster presentations, in 4 core sessions and 2 symposia as follows:

1. Session 1: Green Chemicals, Polymers and Materials

2. Session 2: Green Syntheses, Manufacturing and Engineering Processes

3. Session 3: Green Fossil Energy, Biomass and Future fuels

4. Session 4: Green Chemistry Education

5. Symposium 1: PhosAgro/UNESCO/IUPAC International symposium on Green Chemistry: Driving Force for Innovations and Sustainable Development, co-organized by PhosAgro Group, Russia

6. Symposium 2: SCG Catalysis Advancement, co-organized by SCG Chemicals Co., Ltd., Thailand.

The poster sessions had been arranged in 3 days for a total number of 106 papers, on September 10 (29 papers), September 11 (37 papers) and September 13 (40 papers). The outstanding poster presentations were considered by a group of judges, who evaluated the posters and questioned the presenters. The certificates and prizes from Wiley were awarded to the winners during the closing ceremony, namely;

Laetitia Cesari (France) for “Application of glyceline Deep Eutectic Solvent and CO₂ as working fluid in absorption chiller”; Peter Clark (United Kingdom) for “Utilizing natures oxidant: A base-metal catalyzed oxidative CH amination to form pharmaceutically relevant amino-heterocycles”; Krisadakorn Prakinee (Thailand) for “Green Chemistry for Chlorination of Aromatic Compounds by Tryptophan Halogenases”; Nayana Bhat (Thailand) for “Molecular dynamic simulations reveal substrate binding mechanism of glycerophosphodiesterase”; Jiemeng Li (Italy) for “Biobased chemistry and technology: derivatives of galactarolactone as key intermediates for sustainable products and materials”; Reem Al-Alawi (Oman) for “Preparation of Palm Date (PHOENIX DACTYLIFERA L.) Fruits Extracts and Pharmacological Evaluation of TNF Stimulated PSCs”; Swathy Jakka Ravindran (India) for “Early biofouling detection by ambient ionization mass spectrometry and imaging for sustainable reverse osmosis”.

In addition, 3 other activities within this conference had been organized, i.e. “Green Tech Startup session” and “National Innovation Agency session”, and 1 panel discussion on “Green and Sustainable Material and Its Impact to Humanity”.

The panel discussion on “Green and Sustainable Material and Its Impact to Humanity” was co-organized by DOW Chemicals Thailand before the closing ceremony on the last day of the conference. The panelists were from industry, academia and society, i.e. Loganathan Ravisanker, DOW R&D Director for South East Asia; Jordi Bacardit, Senior Applied R&D Specialist, DOW Chemical Iberica; Mary Kirchhoff, Director of Green Chemistry Institute, American Chemical Society; Elisa Souza Orth, Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Parana; and Supawan Tantayanon, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University as the moderator. The panel discussion provided attendees with the opportunity to engage in in-depth discussion on increasing demand for material goods, growing strains on natural resources and energy supplies and more waste generated, as well as their impacts on the planet and society. The solutions leading to a sustainable economy were discussed and suggested to include in the curriculum.

The Conference was endorsed by IUPAC and FACS (Federation of Asian Chemical Societies), and was sponsored by 13 companies and organizations as follows:

1. Diamond Sponsors: Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited; SCG Chemicals Co., Ltd.; Dow Thailand Group

2. Platinum Sponsor: Shimadzu Bara Scientific Co., Ltd.

3. Gold Sponsors: PhosAgro; Mitr Phol Bio Fuel Co., Ltd; International Laboratories Corp. Ltd.; S&J International Enterprises Public Company Limited; I.C.C. International Public Company Limited

4. Silver Sponsors: National Innovation Agency (Public Organization); Singha Corporation; Ptt Global Chemical Public Company Limited

5. Bronze Sponsors: National Nanotechnology Center (Nanotec); Agilent Technologies (Thailand) Ltd.

6. Regular Sponsor 1 company: N K Laboratory (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

The total number of the participants was 573 from academia, government and private sectors in 48 countries; Austria, Bangladesh, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Netherlands, Nigeria, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Uzbekistan, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Zimbabwe. They were 368 local and 205 international participants. Among these were 73 delegates from private sectors from 13 countries, and 100 students from 23 countries, who had received the scholarships from the organizing committee to attend this conference.