https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9030-040X
The remit of the Thermodynamics Conference Series (TCS) is the promotion of thermodynamics as a scientific discipline, to improve its techniques, and to advance their application in science and technology through the organisation of biennial conferences, bringing together researchers from academia and industry from all over the world. Thermodynamics is a cornerstone of the scientific and engineering disciplines encompassing core branches of chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, petroleum engineering, and materials science. The thermodynamic interrelationships between heat, work, and energy are the basis for understanding the properties of matter and its transformations, which are at the heart of the design and optimisation of industrial processes, and the development of advanced materials and products. Thermodynamics provides a platform from which scientists and engineers can analyse and describe complex systems from the microscopic (molecular) level to the macroscopic scale of bulk matter. Although its origins date back to the scientific revolution, thermodynamics has continued to evolve, benefitting from advances in experimental techniques, theoretical formalism, and numerical molecular simulation. As a consequence of some of the more recent developments, the discipline is becoming relevant to an increasing number of domains including the complex supramolecular arrangements ubiquitous in the life sciences, nano-materials and colloidal systems in which short-range interactions can be dominant, and complex fluids such as liquid crystals, polyelectrolytes, and ionic liquids, which have been the subject of much current attention.
The Thermodynamics 2019 Conference was the 26th meeting in this series of biennial thermodynamics conferences conceived in the 1960s by Sir John Rowlinson and Max McGlashan, and initiated in Keele by Harold Springall (Spring as he was affectionately known by his friends, including Linus Pauling). Although the original emphasis of the science presented at the meetings was on experimental thermodynamics, the TCS now has a wide remit encompassing broad areas of the discipline including experiment, theory, and molecular simulation. The meetings were traditionally held in the UK (see Table ) until 2005 when the conference was hosted by Eduardo Filipe and José Nuno Canongia Lopes in Sesimbra, a picturesque fishing village 40 km from Lisbon. In view of the great success of the Portuguese conference it was decided to hold TCS meetings in both the UK and continental Europe from then on. In 2019, the conference was held in Punta Umbría, located on the coast of Huelva, known as ‘Costa de la Luz’ (‘Coast of Light’), in the south of Spain, near the Portuguese Algarve and bathed by the Atlantic Ocean. A photograph of the participants of the Thermodynamics 2019 Conference is shown in Figure .
Figure 1. Thermodynamics 2019 Conference Participants.
Table 1. Thermodynamics conference Series (TCS); the Presiding Officer of the TCS Steering Committee is indicated in brackets.
After the faithful, selfless and single-handed stewardship of Christopher Wormald in the 1990s, the TCS began its close association with the Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics Group (SMTG) of the Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). As an independent organisation, the TCS is managed by a permanent Steering Committee, at present comprising the Treasurer of the Conference Series (who acts as the Presiding Officer of the Committee), the Chair of the SMTG Management Committee, an additional member of the SMTG, a UK-based member, the acting Thermodynamics Conference Chair, the Immediate Past Thermodynamics Conference Chair, and members of the International Scientific and the Local Organizing Committees. The constitution of the TCS Steering Committee for the Thermodynamics 2019 Conference and the forthcoming Thermodynamics 2021 Conference which is to be held in Bath (United Kingdom) is shown in Table .
Table 2. Membership of the TCS Steering Committee.
Four prizes are currently awarded at the TCS: the Lennard-Jones Lectureship and Prize in recognition of outstanding and enduring contributions to the field (see Table ); the Guggenheim Medal for Excellence in Thermodynamics, awarded by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE, see Table ); the Christopher Wormald Prize, awarded to the most meritorious postgraduate research at the TCS as nominated by members of the community (see Table ); and the young researcher Excellence Award in Thermodynamics and Transport Properties awarded by the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE), presented for the first time at the Thermodynamics 2019 Conference (see Table ). The Lennard-Jones Lectureship and Prize has a long and illustrious history; it was originally awarded in alternate years by the Theoretical Chemistry Group (TCG) and the SMTG of the RSC, then biennially by the SMTG alone; since 2001 it has been presented at the TCS. Nominations for the Lennard-Jones Prize are made by the SMTG Management Committee to the TCS during the organisation of the programme for the Thermodynamics Conference, at which the recipient of the prize gives a keynote presentation. The 2019 Lennard-Jones Lectureship and Prize was awarded to Denis Evans (see Figure ), the 2019 Guggenheim Medal was awarded to Doros Theodorou (see Figure ), the 2019 Wormald Prize was awarded to Jorge R. Espinosa (see Figure ), and the 2019 EFCE Excellence Award in Thermodynamics and Transport Properties was awarded to Mónia A. R. Martins (see Figure ). A keynote Molecular Physics Lecture sponsored by Taylor and Francis Ltd is also one of the crowning features of the TCS (see Table for past lecturers). Peter T. Cummings was the Molecular Physics Lecturer at the Thermodynamics 2019 Conference (see Figure ).
Figure 2. Recipient of the 2019 Lennard-Jones Lectureship and Prize: Denis Evans, Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University and Honorary Professor at The University of Queensland, Australia.
Figure 3. Recipient of the 2019 Guggenheim Medal for excellence in thermodynamics,: Doros Theodorou, National Technical University of Athens, Greece (presented in by Ioannis Economou, Chair of the IChemE Guggenheim Medal Panel).
Figure 4. Recipient of the 2019 Christopher Wormald Prize for most meritorious postgraduate research: Jorge R. Espinosa, University of Cambridge, UK (presented by Felipe Blas, Thermodynamics 2019 Conference Chair, and George Jackson, Editor and Chair of Molecular Physics).
Figure 5. Recipient of the 2019 young researcher Excellence Award in Thermodynamics and Transport Properties: Mónia A. R. Martins, University of Aveiro, Portugal (presented by Carlos Nieto, EFCE representative).
Figure 6. Molecular Physics Lecturer: Peter T. Cummings, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA (presented by Felipe Blas, Thermodynamics 2019 Conference Chair, and George Jackson, Editor and Chair of Molecular Physics).
Table 3. Lennard-Jones Lectureship and Prize.
Table 4. Guggenheim Medal for excellence in thermodynamics.
Table 5. Christopher Wormald Prize for most meritorious postgraduate research.
Table 6. Young Researcher Excellence Award in Thermodynamics and Transport Properties.
Table 7. The Molecular Physics Lectures.
The Thermodynamics 2019 Conference was held in Huelva, Spain between the 26th and 28th of June 2019, and was attended by about 170 academic and industrial participants from 30 countries. The 200 scientific contributions presented at the meeting included the following broad themes: statistical mechanics and equations of state; novel experimental methods; molecular modelling and simulation; multi-scale modelling from quantum mechanics to engineering approaches; transport properties of complex fluids; interfacial phenomena; polymers and other materials; ionic liquids and green processes including supercritical fluids; aqueous systems and electrolytes; pharmaceuticals; nanoscale processes; carbon dioxide and conventional energy production.
The format of the conference consisted of invited plenary lectures, oral presentations, and posters. The highlights of the Thermodynamics 2019 Conference included: the Lennard-Jones Lecture by Denis Evans entitled ‘Dissipation and the foundations of statistical thermodynamics’ (sponsored by Unilever); the Molecular Physics Lecture presented by Peter T. Cummings entitled ‘The molecular simulation design framework (MoSDeF): Capabilities and applications’ (sponsored by Taylor and Francis Ltd); the Guggenheim Medal Lecture by Doros Theodorou entitled ‘Atomistic and mesoscopic simulations of polymers at interfaces’ (awarded by the IChemE); the presentation by Jorge R. Espinosa, the recipient of the Christopher Wormald Prize, entitled ‘Physical determinants of liquid–liquid phase separation of protein mixtures’; and the presentation by Mónia A. R. Martins, the recipient of the Excellence Award in Thermodynamics and Transport Properties, entitled ‘Studies for the development of new separation processes with terpenes and their environmental distribution’ (awarded by the EFCE).
The members of the TCS Steering Committee are very grateful to the editors of Molecular Physics for supporting the publication of this special issue of the journal dedicated to the Thermodynamics 2019 Conference and to the publishers (Taylor and Francis Ltd) for sponsoring the event, as they have done since the 2007 conference. Contributions from participants are being published following review and editing to the usual high standard of the journal, as was done for the Thermodynamics 2011 Conference in Athens [Citation1], the Thermodynamics 2013 Conference in Manchester [Citation2], the Thermodynamics 2015 Conference in Copenhagen [Citation3], and the Thermodynamics 2017 Conference in Edinburgh [Citation4]. The novel and exciting research presented at the conference will be abundantly apparent from the papers collected here. On behalf of the TCS we are hopeful that the COVID-19 pandemic will be under control in 2021 and warmly invite you to the Thermodynamics 2021 Conference in Bath, chaired by Carmelo Herdes (see http://www.thermodynamics2021.org and contact [email protected] for further details).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
References
- G. Jackson and I.G. Economou. Thermodynamics 2011 Conference Athens, Greece, 31 August–3 September 2011, Mol. Phys. 110 (11-12), 1053–1056 (2012). doi: 10.1080/00268976.2012.691683
- A. Galindo and A.J. Masters. Thermodynamics 2013 Conference, Manchester, UK, 3–6 September 2013, Mol. Phys. 112 (17), 2199–2202 (2014). doi: 10.1080/00268976.2014.950079
- I. Economou and G. Kontogeorgis. Thermodynamics 2015 Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15–18 September 2015, Mol. Phys. 114 (18), 2569–2573 (2016). doi: 10.1080/00268976.2016.1238650
- L. Sarkisov, M.B. Sweatman and G. Jackson. Thermodynamics 2017 Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, 5–8 September 2017, Mol. Phys. 116 (15–16), 1909–1914 (2018). doi: 10.1080/00268976.2018.1485540