Preface
Authors: Tokitoh Norihiro 
Published: March 2014

The International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry (ICHAC) is an established international forum for the presentation and discussion of research results in the diverse fields of heteroatom chemistry. Previous ICHAC meetings have been held in different countries: 1987 (Kobe, Japan); 1989 (Albany, NY, USA); 1992 (Riccione, Italy); 1995 (Seoul, Korea); 1998 (London, Ontario, Canada); 2001 (Łódź, Poland); 2004 (Shanghai, China); 2007 (Riverside, CA, USA); and 2009 (Oviedo, Spain). To celebrate its 10th anniversary, ICHAC returned to Japan, the first ICHAC host country. The ICHAC series has been organized mostly every three years, but now is a biennial event beginning with ICHAC-9 in Spain.

Continuing the successful ICHAC series, ICHAC-10 covered many areas around the central topic of heteroatom chemistry. Following the long tradition of these conferences, ICHAC-10 was a major scientific event, bringing together organic and inorganic chemists all over the world to share their interests in the different areas of heteroatom chemistry. As usual, this conference served as a professional forum to disseminate scientific knowledge. Synthesis, structure, and reactivity, including catalysis, theoretical methods, and material aspects, constituted the major themes of ICHAC-10. This issue of Pure and Applied Chemistry presents the selected plenary, invited, and commemorative lectures at ICHAC-10.

ICHAC-10 was held 20-25 May 2012 at Uji Obaku Plaza, Kyoto University, and the conference program consisted of 7 plenary and 17 invited lectures, 3 memorial lectures celebrating the 10th event in the ICHAC series, as well as 43 short communications and 154 poster presentations. We had 371 participants (92 from abroad) from 28 countries. All the participants may have found a fruitful environment at ICHAC-10 for personal contact and scientific exchange, and experienced useful interactions between chemists of different areas. As for the poster presentations by students, the organizing committee selected 9 posters for the student poster awards, and the best 3 of them were awarded as IUPAC poster awards in ICHAC-10.

Although ICHAC-10 was originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2011, we postponed it to 2012 owing to the effects of the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 and the following accident in the Fukushima nuclear power plant. On this occasion, I would like to express our sincere thanks for the worldwide support and sympathy given to the victims of this unprecedented disaster and also for the patience and cooperation concerning the postponing of ICHAC-10.

As a chair of ICHAC-10, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the kind support by IUPAC, the Chemical Society of Japan, the Society of Silicon Chemistry Japan, the Kinki Chemical Society Japan, and the Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, and also the great assistance and contribution from many foundations and companies related to heteroatom chemistry.

ICHAC-11 will be held in Caen (France) in June 2014 and will be hosted by Prof. Annie-Claude Gaumont of ENSICAEN-Université de Caen Basse-Normandie.

Norihiro Tokitoh

Conference Editor