Volume 41, Issue 2

On behalf of the French Academy of Sciences and of its National Committee for Chemistry, the French National Adhering Organization to IUPAC, gathering the main academic and research institutions, learned societies, and industrial organizations relevant to Chemistry, we are very pleased and honoured to invite you to participate and contribute to the IUPAC 47th World Chemistry Congress to be held at the Palais des Congrès, Paris, France, 7-12 July 2019.

The aim of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is to eliminate persistent organic chemicals worldwide by either prohibiting their production and use or gradually reducing them. The Stockholm Convention was adopted in 2001 and entered into force in 2004, 90 days after receiving the 50 th instrument of ratification. The Parties to the Convention have to regularly report progress in implementation of their measures taken to achieve the goals. The Convention has a mechanism to add more compounds; today 28 POPs are covered, 16 more than the initial ones.

2019 is a very special year in chemistry. 2019 marks two major anniversaries: the 100th anniversary of the founding of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), and the 150th anniversary of Dimitri Mendeleev’s first publication on the Periodic Table of Elements [1]. IUPAC is the global organization that, among many other things, established a common language for chemistry—enabling scientific research, education, and trade. In a similar manner, Mendeleev’s system classified all the elements that were known at the time, and even predicted the existence of elements that would only come to be discovered years later. These two anniversaries are closely entwined, as IUPAC has played a major role developing of the modern Periodic Table by ensuring that the most authoritative version of the table is accessible to everyone [2], establishing names and symbols for the newly discovered elements, and also constantly reviewing its accuracy through the IUPAC Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights.

In July 2018, the International Chemistry Olympiad returned to celebrate its golden jubilee in its birthplace, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which this year also commemorated the 100 th anniversary of the constitution of Czechoslovakia.

“Unfortunately the new element for the examination of which he came over, proves shy and will not disclose itself. I cannot imagine what it can be, and seriously doubt its existence. This is disappointing and leaves one more gap in the list of the known elements."

To celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science this February 11, IUPAC announced the awardees of the IUPAC 2019 Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering:

IUPAC and Zhejiang NHU have established a new collaborative award in Green Chemistry encouraging young and experienced chemists, and emphasizing the importance of advancements in Green Chemistry and the value of sciences to human progress. This newly established award covers all the topics of Green Chemistry, such as Green and Renewable Feedstocks, Green Synthetic Routes, Green Solvents, Green Catalysis, Green products, Green Energy, and as broadly defined by OECD as Sustainable Chemistry.

The International Prototype Kilogram, after 130 years of dutiful service, is finally retiring. The IPK, a golf ball-sized cylinder made of a special platinum-iridium alloy (90:10), was introduced in 1889 at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) near Paris to define the unit of mass using an artifact fabricated with the utmost care and precision available at the time. New units were subsequently adopted for other physical quantities such as electric current (the ampere) and temperature (the kelvin), and the increasing need for a more cohesive set of units of measurement led to the implementation of the International System of Units (SI) in 1960.