The fifth Asia-Pacific Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, Jeju Island, Korea, 26–29 August 2012

The 2012 Asia-Pacific Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry (2012 APWC) was held at the Ramada Hotel, Jeju Island, Korea, from August 26^th to 29^th 2012. We were indeed honoured to have the opportunity to welcome over 211 participants, including 2 plenary lecturers, 1 invited lecturer, 2 company sponsored lecturers, and 21 invited speakers from 18 countries worldwide. There were 155 papers presented in total; 61 oral presentations and 94 poster presentations. Instead of short courses, the workshop on the Regulation of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) given by 5 domestic contributed lecturers was held on Monday, August 27, from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm at the Ora Hall. The companies which participated in the exhibition especially contributed to the conference.

The 2012 APWC broke several new records in the Asian-Pacific Plasma Spectrochemistry society. First, it was held during the summer, even though it was named as a winter conference. Secondly, we had two unforgettable typhoons in series during the conference period (Fig. 1). Tembin, one of the strongest tropical cyclones in history hit the Korean Peninsula, and gave us a long-lasting story and a big show with high-rise waves and strong winds. Sadly many domestic scientists missed the conference because of flight cancellations, however the modified excursion allowed us to tour an interesting place unexpectedly. The second typhoon, Bolaven, was not as strong as Tembin, but was big enough to tie up many participants at Jeju airport. Lastly, the organizing chairman gave a mini-concert on saxophone at the conference dinner.

Fig. 1 A picture of typhoon, Tembin, taken by Dr John Cantle and presented at 2012 APWC.

The conference began with a get-together party held in the main conference room, Tamra Hall, on Sunday evening with a wonderful sunset at the horizon of the Southern Sea.

Fig. 2 Conference delgates after the closing remarks.

The scientific sessions commenced on Monday under the topics of recent progress in fundamentals, instrumentation, methodology and applications of plasma spectrochemistry. After a short introduction of “The History of the Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry” given by Prof. Ramon Barnes, a plenary lecture was presented by Prof. Robert S. Houk entitled “Historical and Recent Developments in ICP Mass Spectrometry” (Fig. 3). The second plenary lecture was given by Prof. Detlef Günther entitled “Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry-Fundamentals and Applications.” Unfortunately, we missed the plenary lecture of Prof. Akbar Montaser, scheduled on Wednesday morning, who was unable to attend.

Fig. 3 Plenary lecture by Prof. R. S. Houk.

Dr Norbert Jakubowski as an invited conference lecturer discussed the topic of plasma-based spectroscopy in materials science. Dr Richard Russo and Dr J. Sabine Becker, as company sponsored lecturers, presented the subjects of laser ablation in plasma spectrochemistry and mass spectrometry imaging in life science, respectively. The subject topics were focused on laser ablation, the environment, geological, and nuclear sciences on Monday, and bioanalysis on the topics of food, pharmaceutical, clinical sciences, etc., on Tuesday. A conference excursion to Udo Island scheduled on Tuesday afternoon was cancelled due to the typhoon and was substituted with a short tour of the island (Fig. 4). The conference resumed on Wednesday with the topics on elemental speciation, instrumentation, and material applications. Most domestic presentations were focused on analytical methodology and application in biology, environmental, and nuclear science, and several presentations were given in the field of laser ablation and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. All of the posters were presented throughout the duration of the conference. The JAAS poster award was given to Prof. Chul-Un Ro of Inha University entitled “Single particle analysis by the combined use of quantitative ED-EPMA, Raman microspectrometry, and ATR-FT-IR imaging techniques.” In the exhibition, 16 booths were exhibited by 14 companies. As a manufacturer's event, Agilent Technologies and PerkinElmer kindly supported lunch seminars and evening events, which included some wonderful examples of traditional Korean entertainment (Fig. 6). All the participants, manufacturers, and students of Dankook University contributed to make the conference successful. The 6^th Asian-Pacific Winter Conference will be held in Xiamen, China, organized by Professor Wei Hang and colleagues. I hope to see you all there again for a successful APWC.

Fig. 4 The conference excursion, a tour of Jeju Island.

Fig. 5 Heung Bin Lim, conference Chairman.

Fig. 6 Traditional Korean entertainment during the conference.

Henung Bin Lim,

5th APWC Chairman.

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