On April 19-21 2015, the 20th National Symposium and Exhibition on Chromatography was held in the ancient city Xi'an ceremoniously. The symposium was chaired by Prof. Yukui Zhang from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics，Chinese Academy of Sciences（DICP）, and co-chaired by Prof. Xiaohui Zheng from Northwestern University. The sponsors of the symposium were the Chinese Chemical Society and the Chinese Chromatography Society. The symposium was organized by the Northwestern University, the Commission on Chromatography of Chinese Chemical Society and the Commission on Chromatography of China Association for Instrumental Analysis. The assistant organizers were DICP，and Shaanxi Chemical Society.
About 1000 scientists, scholars, postdoctors, students and exhibitors from more than 200 institutions and enterprises attended the symposium. 49 chromatographic instruments and accessories companies including Agilent Technologies (China) Co., ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Inc. and SHIMADZU (CHINA) CO., LTD attended the exhibition. The editorial board meeting of the Chinese Journal of Chromatography and the meeting of Commission on Chromatography of Chinese Chemical Society and Chinese Chromatography Society were held during the Symposium.
Prof. Xiaohui Zheng chaired the opening ceremony. Prof. Yukui Zhang gave an opening speech and Prof. Peizhang Lu from the DICP introduced the history of the series symposium which was held biannually since 1961. Prof. Lihong Guo, the President of the Northwestern University, gave a welcome speech. Some famous professors also attended the opening ceremony, including Prof. Hongyuan Chen from the Nanjing University, Prof. Yufen Zhao from the Tsinghua University, Prof. Guibin Jiang from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, CAS, Xueti Wu from the Research Condition and the financial secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Prof. Qiankun Zhuang from the Department of Chemistry of National Natural Science Foundation.
Professor Liren Ma, Professor An Zhu, Professor Qingyu Ou, Professor Caiying Wu and Professor Xindu Geng received the “Chinese Chromatography Contribution Award” in the opening ceremony.
The 20th National Symposium and Exhibition on Chromatography was featuring 12 plenary, 72 keynote, 154 oral, 25 Youth Forum lectures and 416 posters. In the exhibition area 12 vendor seminars were given. Prof. Yukui Zhang, Prof. Guowang Xu and Prof. Hanfa Zou from the DICP gave the plenary lectures. Prof. Yafeng Guan, Prof. Xinmiao Liang, Prof. Lihua Zhang and Prof. Jianhua Qin from the DICP gave the invited keynote lectures. More than 40 researchers from the DICP attended the symposium.
During the 3 days conference, extensive presentations and discussions were carried out in all fields of research in chromatography including gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, microscale separations, sample preparation methods, column technology and stationary phases, hyphenated separations techniques、metabolomics, proteomics, theoretical models and insights.
The Youth Oral Lecture evaluation committee presented 10 Youth Oral Lecture Prize Awards. Jia Li and Nan Deng, both PhD students from the DICP, were awarded the prize. The poster evaluation committee handed out 15 Best Poster Prize Awards. Shuangyuan Wang, Qun Zhao and Yi Min from the DICP, received the prize.
At the end of the closing ceremony, Prof. Guowang Xu announced on behalf of the Permanent Science Committee of the National Symposium and Exhibition on Chromatography, that the next symposium will be organized by the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in April, 2017 in Lanzhou.
（Author：Xiaoli Hou， Photo：Northwestern University）
