HISTORY

BRIEF HISTORY

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    International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes (ICOM) was the largest and most important conference on membrane science and technology. There was the agreement that ICOM was held by the Membrane Society of Japan (MSJ) in Japan, by the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) in North America and by the European membrane Society (EMS) in Europe every three years. ICOM 1996 was held in Yokohama, Japan and during this ICOM the Membrane Society of Korea (MSK) intended to have ICOM in Korea in future because membrane research was becoming active and number of researchers was increasing in Korea. MSJ and MSK discussed and at next ICOM held in Toronto, Canada, in 1999 MSJ proposed the new agreement as follows. The world is divided into three area, Asia and Oceania, North and South America, and Europe and Africa. ICOM is held in these three area every three years. The representative society of North and South America is NAMS, that of Europe and Africa is EMS. There is no representative society of Asia and Oceania, therefore MSJ and MSK will establish the representative society before next ICOM2002 and the new society will organize ICOM 2005. This proposal was authorized.

    MSJ and MSK started to make the constitution on the new society which represent Asia and Oceania area. We had the final meeting for the establishment of the new society in Nov. 10, 2000 during the Annual Fall Meeting of MSK held in Kwangju, Korea with attendees of S. C. Kim, S. H. Noh, Y. S. Kang from MSK and S. I. Nakao from MSJ. The name of the new society was decided on the “Aseanian Membrane Society (AMS)”. “Aseanian” is a combined new word of “Asian” and “Oceanian”. The founding societies were MSJ, MSK and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. At that moment there was no membrane society in Australia, but Prof. Tony Fane and his group in Australia was active in research on membrane science and technology.

    In May 18, 2001 during the annual meeting of MSJ held in Tokyo, the signing ceremony of AMS was held and AMS officially started. The First Conference of Aseanian Membrane Society was held in May 15, 2002 in Tokyo. In ICOM2002 held in Toulouse, France, we announced that the establishment of AMS and the first conference has been held. AMS was authorized by NAMS and EMS and AMS announced to have ICOM2005 in Seoul, Korea for the membrane world.

    The second AMS conference was held in Korea in 2004, then in 2006 at Beijing, China, in 2007 at Taipei, Taiwan, in 2009 at Kobe, Japan, in 2010 at Sidney, Australia, in 2012 at Busan, Korea, in 2013 at Xian, China, in 2015 at Taipei, Taiwan, in 2016 at Nara, Japan, in 2018 at Brisbane, Australia, and in 2019 at Jeju, Korea. The thirteenth AMS will be held in 2022 in Singapore. ICOM was also organized by AMS twice in 2005 in Korea and in 2014 in China. ICOM2023 will be hosted by MSJ at Chiba, Japan.

    In this moment AMS consists of eight membrane societies, MSJ, MSK, the Membrane Society in Australasia, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and India.