The Innovative Center of Nanomaterials Science for Environment and Energy (ICNSEE; Director-General, Sukekatsu Ushioda, Managing Director, Takahisa Ohno) of the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS; President: Sukekatsu Ushioda) has announced that they will hold the 1st Symposium of ICNSEE.
The ICNSEE is a research center established to realize the research concepts of the invitational program “Development of Environmental Technology using Nanotechnology” sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in 2009. Its core institution is NIMS, which was the only research institute selected in the program. The ICNSEE began activities on October 23, 2009 in order to bring together leading researchers from Japan and other countries and promote basic and generic research on environmental and energy technologies through industry-academia-IAI (Independent Administrative Institution) collaboration.
The objective of the Center is to create new materials for solving environmental and energy problems by a convergence of theoretical analysis of surfaces and interfaces and advanced measurement techniques, targeting photovoltaic materials and photocatalytic materials related to flows of energy originating from sunlight, and rechargeable battery materials and fuel cells.
The aims in holding the 1st Symposium of the ICNSEE are to present an overview of research in the Center, report the results of research to date, and promote industry-academia collaboration and exchanges between researchers across a wide range of fields. Following the Keynote Lecture by Prof. Louis Schlapbach, who is the previous CEO of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA) and is scheduled to be appointed Vice-Director of the ICNSEE, lectures will be presented on a total of six topics, covering the four topics of photovoltaic cells, photocatalysts, secondary cells, and fuel cells, together with theoretical/computation science and advanced analysis.
