Scope

The artificial photosynthesis attracts much attention as one of the promising technologies for solving the global environmental problems that may threaten sustainability of human beings caused by the exhaustion of fossil energy and carbon resources along with the gradual increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. The research on the artificial photosynthesis had restarted and been renovated in late 20th century through the three milestones of the light induced water splitting using titanium dioxide (Honda-Fujishima effect: 1972), water oxidation catalyst (Meyer: 1983), and photocatalytic reduction of CO₂　(Lehn: 1986). We believe that the cutting edge of artificial photosynthesis is developing so fast and getting into new stage, where the importance of fundamental science and technology of artificial photosynthesis along with their practical application has been re-recognized from the viewpoint of globally sustainable society. Many big national research projects in U.S.A., Europe, and Asia have started recently. Also in Japan, strong financial support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology have started for the national project, "All Nippon Artificial photosynthesis Project for Living Earth (AnApple)" (research representative: H. Inoue) as one of the Scientific Researches on Innovative Areas from the fiscal year 2012 as five years' project. More than 40 Japanese leading scientific groups joined this project, and are working very hard with strong collaboration with each other to get breakthroughs for realization of artificial photosynthesis.

It is our great pleasure to announce that the AnApple project will host "The International Conference on Artificial Photosynthesis (ICARP2014, http://www.artificial-photosynthesis.net/icarp2014)". The ICARP2014 will be held for five days from November 24 (Monday) to 28 (Friday) in 2014 at Awaji Yumebutai International Conference Center in Hyogo Prefecture (http://www.yumebutai.org/english/index.html). The top scientists from all over the world in the artificial-photosynthesis research area will get together. Stimulating reports on latest research results and discussions on the present situation and the future prospect of the artificial photosynthesis as well as those on the related project in each country will be intensively presented. We believe that ICARP2014 will surely provide a significant opportunity to contribute to the development of the future of this research field.