July 11th, 2019 | Chengdu, China                                                                     

On July 11th, the "Chinese Materials Conference 2019," hosted by the Chinese Materials Research Society (C-MRS), was held in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The opening ceremony was attended by Ruiping Gao, Deputy Director of the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Hongbo Yang, Vice Governor of Sichuan Province; Junjie Cao, Deputy Mayor of Chengdu; Bingbo Wei, President of C-MRS and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Yafang Han, President of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS); Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Yidong Gu, Jiecai Han, Yunqi Liu, Yongjun Tian, Zhonglin Wang, Yuquan Wei, Yueguang Wei, Tongyi Zhang, and Zhigang Zou; Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Wenjiang Ding, Xigao Jian, Jiangang Li, Yuanyuan Li, Jinchuan Liu, Pingya Luo, Zuoren Nie, Fusheng Pan, Qi Wang, Yingjun Wang, Yuzhong Wang, Jianxin Xie, Lianmeng Zhang; Jingli Luo, Academician of the Canadian Academy of Engineering; Jian Lu, Academician of the French National Academy of Technologies; and Licheng Sun, Academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Also present were related leaders from the Supervisory Board and the Board of Directors of C-MRS. The opening ceremony was hosted by Yuanyuan Li, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Bingbo Wei introduced the conference's overview, stating that the Chinese Materials Research Society is a cross-disciplinary and cross-field academic organization focused on new materials and has hosted numerous international materials conferences. He expressed hope that the Chinese Materials Conference would not only promote exchange and development among peers but also build a bridge for communication and cooperation across industries, fields, and supply chains.

Hongbo Yang expressed his hope that the conference would provide a platform for the exchange of ideas on China's materials research and development, offering guidance for China's materials research work and industry development, and supporting the development of Sichuan's materials industry in the new era.

The plenary session was co-chaired by Vice Presidents of C-MRS Jianxin Xie, Yingjun Wang, and Duan Weng. Keynote reports were delivered by Yidong Gu, Director of the Academic Committee of the China Academy of Space Technology; Zhonglin Wang, Researcher at the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Yongjun Tian, Professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Yanshan University; and Zuoren Nie, Vice President of Beijing University of Technology. Their report titles were "Prospects for the Development of China’s Space Technology," "The Physics of Contact-electrification and its Impact to the Energy for the New Era," "Progress and Prospects of Research on Nanostructured Superhard Materials," and "Research and Application Progress of Ecological Environmental Materials," respectively.

During the conference, the 2019 "C-MRS Science and Technology Awards" ceremony was held, presenting seven first prizes. The conference also hosted the launch and book-giving ceremony of the new popular science series "Approaching Frontier New Materials."

The conference featured 42 symposia and 4 thematic forums, including topics such as energy conversion and storage materials, thermoelectric materials and applications, and nuclear materials. The content covered five fields: energy materials, environmental materials, structural materials, functional materials, and materials design, preparation, and evaluation. Over 7,000 participants attended the conference, with more than 2,700 experts and scholars presenting their latest research findings. The conference received over 4,200 paper abstracts, and more than 1,200 posters were displayed and discussed.