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Vol.
25 No. 3
May - June 2003
Photochemistry
by
Silvia E. Braslavsky
The
XIXth IUPAC Symposium on Photochemistry took place
1419 July 2002 in the beautiful and pleasant capital
city of Budapest, Hungary. The meetings, lectures, and posters
showed again that "Photochimia vivat, floreat, crescat," as
conference chairman Heinz Roth wrote in the book of abstracts
from the conference. About 400 participants from 36 Countries
discussed basic and applied photochemistry. There were eight
plenary lectures delivered by the following:
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R. Rigler, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, on single molecule
spectroscopy
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W. Lubitz, Max-Planck-Institut für Strahlenchemie,
Germany, on primary processes in photosynthesis studied
by advanced EPR techniques
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Th. Bally, University of Fribourg, Switzerland on photochemistry
of arylnitrenes
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H. Tomioka, Mie University, Japan, on triplet carbenes
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S. E. Braslavsky, Max-Planck-Institut für Strahlenchemie,
Germany, on electron transfer reactions studied by laser-induced
optoacoustic spectroscopy
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S. R. Marder, University of Arizona, USA, on the utilization
of two-photon excitation for 3D fabrication
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D. G. Nocera, MIT, USA, on energy conversion at a molecular
level
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K. Hashimoto, University of Tokyo, Japan, on TiO2 photocatalysis
The
Porter Medal, traditionally awarded at these symposia, was
given to Joseph Michl, who delivered a lecture on oligosilanes.
In addition, there were 16 invited lectures, 36 oral contributions,
and 280 posters, covering all areas of photochemistry. The
poster sessions were lively, with younger participants engaged
in long discussion with the more senior participants. Two
workshops were held. One on Fast Spectroscopy of Biological
Systems and the other on Theory and Calculations in Photochemistry.
The conference banquet was in a very nice setting. During
the whole conference we enjoyed the hospitality of the Hungarian
people and the famous Hungarian cooking.
It
is a real pity that more colleagues from North and South America
were unable to attend for financial reasons. These IUPAC-sponsored
photochemistry symposia have always been of major interest
to photochemists from the whole world and have served to present
the newest developments in the field as well as to enable
long-lasting scientific contacts and friendships. We hope
that the next symposium in the seriesplanned for July
2004 in Granada, Spain (the scientific chair is M. A. Miranda
from Valencia)will result in greater participation of
our colleagues from the USA, Canada, and those Latin American
countries in which photochemistry already has a tradition,
such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela.
Silvia
E. Braslavsky <[email protected]>
is from the Max- Planck-Institut für Strahlenchemie,
in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. She is a member of the
IUPAC Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry Division Committee
and of the Subcommittee on Photochemistry.
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last modified 29 April 2003.
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Applied Chemistry.
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