Greeting

The Battery Symposium in Japan is one of the largest academic meetings related to the electricity storage technology including primary batteries, secondary batteries, fuel cells, and capacitors. The first symposium was held at Tokyo in 1960. This symposium is organized by the Committee of Battery Technology of the Electrochemical Society of Japan and held with more than 500 research presentations and 2,500 participants every year. The 62nd symposium will be held for three days from November 30 to December 2, 2021 at PACIFICO Yokohama.

The electricity storage technology is getting more and more important in order to realize a decarbonized society. Especially, durable, inexpensive, and safe batteries have been demanded for the large-scaled electricity storage for the efficient use of renewable energy. In addition, the batteries having high performance and high energy density are necessary for electrified vehicles, which are spreading remarkably around the world. All these topics are involved in the scope of this symposium.

The pandemic of corona-virus disease (COVID-19) has restricted the social life largely in the world since 2019. Many academic meetings have been forced to be canceled or changed over to online format. Consequently, the 61st symposium was held online in 2020 although the numbers of presentations and participants decreased compared to the usual year. It is difficult to predict the situation during the meeting period. However, the 62nd symposium is currently planned to be held in-person. The final decision whether the symposium is held in-person or in a hybrid of physical and online format will be made by the end of August. Hopefully, the situation will be improved by the progress of vaccination.

The 62nd symposium is the fourth symposium held in Yokohama. The organizing committee of this symposium is preparing to welcome all the participants with taking counter measures against COVID-19. Although no social events are planned due the infection prevention, I hope that this symposium will be a fruitful opportunity for discussion and communication about the recent academic knowledge and technology.