Editorial: International Symposium on Inorganic and Environmental Materials (ISIEM 2004)

The first ideas on organizing a combined Japanese–Dutch symposium on Inorganic Materials were born in 2003. It was a follow-up of a long running cooperation between the Sophia University, Tokyo (Kiyoshi Itatani) and the Eindhoven University of Technology (Bert Hintzen). This symposium was intended to provide an opportunity for a discussion and a mutual understanding between people from Japan, The Netherlands and other European countries on recent developments and areas of growth in Advanced Inorganic Materials Science and Technology including environmental and energy related materials. Topics in this symposium were on processing and properties in the interdisciplinary field of Inorganic Materials Science, which goes beyond specific scientific backgrounds and departments. Properties discussed were on environmental aspects, such as recycling, non-toxicity and sustainability, including energy conversion, storage and saving. Also subjects like biomaterials for hard-tissue replacement were treated.