Editorial

This special issue of adsorption is devoted to selected papers from the 11th International Conference on the Fundamentals of Adsorption (FOA11) which was held at the Hyatt-Regency on the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD, USA, May 19th–24th, 2013. The International Conference on the Fundamentals of Adsorption (FOA) is the premier international conference in the field of Adsorption. The conference is held every three years under the auspices of the International Adsorption Society (IAS). The conference was chaired by Peter Monson and co-chaired by Akihiko Matsumoto and Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern. Conference management services were provided by Barr Enterprises under the leadership of Janet Cunningham.

With FOA11 we celebrated 30 years of FOA conferences since the first conference was organized by Alan Myers and Georges Belfort in 1983. The full list of the FOA conferences, locations and conference chairs is:

• FOA1, 1983, May 6–11, Schloss Elmau, GERMANY, A. L. Myers and G. Belfort

• FOA2, 1986, May 4–9, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, A. I. Liapis

• FOA3, 1989, May 5–9, Sonthofen, GERMANY, A. Mersmann

• FOA4, 1992, May 17–22, Kyoto, JAPAN, M. Suzuki

• FOA5, 1995, May 13–18, Pacific Grove, CA, USA, M. D. LeVan

• FOA6, 1998, May 23–27, Presquile de Giens, FRANCE, F. Meunier

• FOA7, 2001, May 20–25 Nagasaki, JAPAN, K. Kaneko

• FOA8, 2004, May 23–28, Sedona, AZ, USA, O. Talu

• FOA9, 2007, May 20–25, Giardini Naxos, Sicily, ITALY, M. Mazzotti

• FOA10, 2010, May 23–28, Awaji, JAPAN, M. Miyahara

• FOA11, 2013, May 19–24, Baltimore, MD, USA, P. A. Monson

FOA11 was attended by 321 delegates (Fig. 1), together with 27 accompanying persons from over 40 countries throughout the World. There were 373 technical presentations including:

• Keynote lectures by M. Miyahara, P. Webley and M. Thommes

• 41 papers in plenary sessions

• 99 papers in parallel sessions

• 230 papers in poster sessions.

Fig. 1

Conference photograph from FOA11. The conference chair, Peter A. Monson, is seen in the front row, two persons to the right of center. Professor Monson has been on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts since 1982. He was appointed Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2010. His research interests are in applications of molecular theory and modeling in Chemical Engineering. His work is currently focused on the thermodynamics and dynamics of fluids confined in porous materials and the self-assembly of ordered nanoporous materials

There was also a special session with presentations by the winners of the IAS awards for 2013. A hallmark of the conference is its comprehensive coverage of the spectrum of fundamental research and applications of adsorption. In FOA11 topics covered included:

• Fundamentals of adsorption thermodynamics and kinetics.

• Molecular modeling of adsorption phenomena.

• Adsorbent materials including zeolites, carbons, silicas, metal organic frameworks and other nanostructured materials.

• Characterization of adsorbent materials.

• Liquid phase and gas phase adsorption fundamentals.

• Multicolumn and simulated moving bed adsorption processes.

• Biotechnology applications of adsorption including bioseparations and nanopore technology.

• Energy applications including biofuels, fuel cells, gas storage.

• Environmental applications including the role of adsorption in green house gas capture and sequestration.

The conference was supported financially by several corporations:

• Praxair Inc

• Quantachrome Instruments

• Linde AG

• Air Products and Chemicals Inc

• Zeochem

• Micromeritics

• Linseis

• Lectrodryer

• Hiden Isochema Ltd

• Fraunhofer-Institut fr Werkstoff- und Strahltechnik IWS

• Microtrac

• Bel-Japan,

• Rubotherm

• Anton Paar GmbH

• American Elements.

The conference organizers and IAS are very grateful for the generous support of these companies, which made it possible, for example, to subsidize the travel costs of a group of young researchers who attended the conference.

The conference chairman is grateful to many individuals who helped make the organization and the conference itself such a success. The two conference co-chairs, Akihiko Matsumoto and Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, provided strong support, organized the judging of the poster competition and co-edited the Adsorption special issue. The members of the scientific advisory board and officers of IAS provided invaluable help with the review of the abstracts submitted. The Hyatt-Regency and its staff provided a wonderful setting for the conference. Finally, Janet Cunningham and Barr Enterprises provided truly outstanding conference management services, from the earliest planning stages through to the running of the event itself.

The papers in this special issue of Adsorption were treated as regular articles published in the journal and subject to the standard peer review process. The issue was co-edited by P. A. Monson, A. Matsumoto and A. Seidel-Morgenstern. The editors greatly appreciate the efforts of the authors who contributed to this issue in a timely way and to the many individuals who served as reviewers. We are also grateful to Gino Baron, the Editor-in-Chief of Adsorption, for his support and guidance.

FOA12, to be chaired by Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern, will be held in Friedrichshafen (Lake Constance), Germany, May 29th to June 3rd, 2016. We all look forward to this next meeting of our International Adsorption Community.