A Successful JAAS 25th Anniversary Symposium

After celebrations of the 25th birthday of JAAS at various conferences including BNASS in July and the FACSS meeting in October, there were several locations which could have been chosen for the final event in this anniversary year. Therefore, it was a great honour to host a JAAS symposium in Tsinghua University, Beijing, on 23rd November 2010.

The Symposium was hosted by Tsinghua University.

The symposium focused on the past, the present, and the future of atomic spectrometry with a special emphasis on the situation in China. The speakers at the symposium included Steven Ray (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA), Xinrong Zhang (Tsinghua University, China), Rebeca Santamaria Fernandez (The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Spain), Takafumi Hirata (Kyoto University, Japan), Lothar Rottmann (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Germany), John Cantle (Nu Instruments, UK), Steve Wilbur (Agilent Technologies Inc., USA), Tai Zhao (Analytik Jena, China), Martín Resano (University of Zaragoza, Spain), Ashley Townsend (University of Tasmania, Australia), Norbert Jakubowski (BAM, Berlin, Germany), Niamh O'Connor (JAAS Publisher) and myself and Shan Gao (China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China).

Speakers at the Symposium.

This meeting was a great success. Many thanks to the organizing committee, headed by Niamh O'Connor, Detlef Günther and Xinrong Zhang, who did a wonderful job of attracting over 100 enthusiastic participants from the analytical chemistry community of the world. The quality of the talks and enthusiastic discussion afterwards that were present in this symposium was extraordinary. The topics covered a broad range from fundamental research on glow discharge spectroscopy over new laser ablation techniques to several applications in the field of biological, forensic, food-science, geological and environmental analysis. This demonstrated the continued growth in popularity of analytical atomic spectrometry as well.

The presentations from the manufactures gave an up-to-date view of the currently available and upcoming instruments. Together with a panel discussion, the hot topics of atomic spectroscopy in China were summarized. The active research areas include ICP-MS based immunoassay, speciation analysis, advanced materials for separation and preconcentration, flow-based sample pretreatments hyphenated with atomic spectrometry, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), nuclear analytical techniques as well as laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.

Just as impressive as the current situation is the development of analytical atomic spectroscopy over the past 25 years in China. Compared to other atomic spectroscopy methods like AAS, AFS and ICP-AES, ICP-MS is considered the hottest one currently. There were only 2–3 ICP-MS instruments in China during the 1980s. In great contrast, the number of ICP-MS units sold in China exceeded 340 in 2010, resulting largely from the 30 year opening and reform of China.

The Symposium included a discussion session on the development of analytical science in China.

In the current evaluation of research in China, it is highly encouraged to publish papers in top international journals. JAAS is the clear choice for publishing topical work of the highest quality in analytical atomic spectrometry. The development of JAAS is mirroring the development of the atomic spectrometry community. The recent rapid increased contributions to JAAS by Chinese author reflect the continued prosperity of analytical atomic spectrometry in China. It is encouraging to note that the Chinese contributions to JAAS in 2010 have increased to a present percentage of 14%. Looking forward to future developments, we are confident that research from China will make greater contributions to promote JAAS into an even higher impact journal.

As a Chinese member of the analytical chemistry community, it was a real honour to be involved in such a fantastic event in our capital Beijing. I would like to thank the organizing committee again who decided to hold the JAAS 25th anniversary celebrations in China. This recognizes the efforts of the Chinese analytical community and helps to build up and improve connections and friendship between international researchers.

Finally, many sincere thanks to all who participated in such a wonderful anniversary celebration as well as to all of you who have contributed to JAAS' success, and we wish you a happy and prosperous 2011!

Zhaochu Hu

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