The SSI conference series was inaugurated in 1989 in order to bring together students and leaders in the field for 5 days of plenary and invited talks by preeminent scientists in the field, as well serve as a gathering point for students and emerging leaders. asa Here are a few souvenirs from the biannual SSI conferences over the years. If you have photos you would like added to the collection and share with the SSI community, please contact the Webmaster via the "Contact Us" site.

SSI-23: Boston, MA, USA
Organizer: B. Yildiz

SSI-22: PyeongChang, Korea
Organizer: J.-H. Lee

SSI-21: Padua, Italy
Organizer: V. Di Noto

SSI-20: Keystone, Colorado
Organizer: S. Kim

SSI-19: Kyoto, Japan
Organizer: S. Yamaguchi

SSI-18 2011 Warsaw, POLAND
Organizer: F. Krok

SSI-17: Toronto, Canada
Organizer: A. Cormack

SSI-16: Shanghai, China
Organizer: H. Luo

SSI-15: Baden-Baden, Germany
Organizers: E. Ivers-Tiffee and J. Maier

SSI-14: Monterey, CA
Organizer: T. Gur

SSI-13: Cairns, Australia
Organizer: S.P.S. Badwal

SSI-12: Thessaloniki, Greece
Organizer: C. Vayenas

SSI-11: Honolulu, HI
Organizer: B. Liebert

SSI-10: Singapore
Organizer: B.V.R. Chowdari

SSI-9: The Hague, The Netherlands
Organizer: J. Schoonman

SSI-8: Lake Louise, Canada
Organizer: P. Nicholson

SSI-7: Hakone, Japan
Organizer: S. Hoshino

SSI-6: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Organizer: W. Weppner

The following SSI conferences were held before the establishment of ISSI as a formal Society:

SSI-5: Lake Tahoe, CA
Organizer: R. Huggins

SSI-4: Grenoble, France
Organizer: M. Kleitz

SSI-3: Tokyo, Japan
Organizer: T. Takehashi

SSI-2: St. Andrews, Scotland
Organizer: C. Vincent

SSI-1: Rome, Italy
Organizer: B. Scrosati

Perspectives on the ISSI 

Much has happened in our field since the founding of our Society on September 8, 1987, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany at the 6th International Conference on Solid State Ionics. The promise of high energy density batteries has been fulfilled with lithium batteries now powering our laptops, cell phones and even motor vehicles.   Concerns about global warming have accelerated the demand for alternative means for capturing and storing solar and other forms of renewable energy as well as for the detection and monitoring of emissions. Our field of Solid State Ionics is well poised to provide efficient and cost effective solutions, if we as a community, can make rapid and synergistic progress combining advances in theory, experiment, computation towards device development and scale up on the types of devices illustrated in the above figure. More recent developments hold promise for future micro and nanoelectronic devices in which ion motion can be applied to create extremely fast and highly dense memory elements. Finally, it is fair to say that life itself depends on ion motion through membranes, and this interface between biology and solid state ionics is itself an exciting frontier that individuals in our field are just beginning to seriously address.

Recent Initiatives

ISSI has in recent years been working towards providing a more direct interface with members of the Society as well as providing them with useful resources. Several of these activities include:

• Incorporating the Society as a stand alone Non-profit Corporation with ability to handle its own finances
• Building on our success in recognizing outstanding contributions from young scientists active in the Solid State Ionics field via the Young Scientist Award Program to include the new ISSI Mid Career Research Award and the ISSI Senior Scientist Award.
• Establishing a permanent, more user-friendly Website highlighting latest developments in the field of Solid State Ionics and providing means for members to provide feedback to the Society.
• Organizing the International Conference on Solid State Ionics to address both current and crosscutting trends in the field. SSI-23 was successfully held in Boston, MA, USA, July 17-22, 2022. The conference website: https://mrs.org/ssi-23
• The next International Conference on Solid State Ionics (SSI-24) will be held in London, UK, July 15-19, 2024.
  The conference website: https://ssi24.scito.org/
  

We look forward to receiving your input as to how the ISSI might further advance services to its members and the broader SSI community.

ISSI Board Members

The ISSI board members are currently as follows:

President:
     Prof. Bilge Yildiz, USA

Vice President:
     Prof. Tatsumi Ishihara, Japan

Immediate Past President:
    Prof. Truls Norby, Norway

Treasurer:
     Prof. Jennifer Rupp, Germany

Secretary:
     Prof. Koji Amezawa, Japan

Councilors from Asia/Pacific Rim:
     Prof. Yasutoshi Iriyama, Japan
     Prof. WooChul Jung, Korea
     Prof. Hanxing Liu, China

Councilors from Europe:
     Dr. Rotraut Merkle, Germany
     Prof. John T. S. Irvine, U. K.
     Prof. Bettina Lotsch, Germany

Councilors from America:
     Prof. Nicola H. Perry, USA
     Prof. Ryan O'Hayre, USA 

Councilors from Any Region:
     Prof. Sossina Haile, USA

ISSI Past Presidents

The ISSI Leadership heralds from the most highly renowned and respected individuals from across the globe:

2019-2022: Prof. Truls Norby, Norway

2017-2019: Prof. Han-Ill Yoo, Korea

2015-2017: Prof. Harry L. Tuller, USA

2013-2015: Prof. Joachim Maier, Germany

2011-2013: Prof. Shu Yamaguchi, Japan

2009-2011: Prof. M. Stanley Whittingham, USA

2007-2009: Prof. Klaus Funke, Germany

2005-2007: Prof. Tsutomu Minami, Japan

2003-2005: Prof. Subhash Singhal, USA

2001-2003: Prof. Joop Schoonman, The Netherlands

1999-2001: Prof. Hiroyasu Iwahara, Japan

1997-1999: Prof. Wayne Worrell, USA

1995-1997: Prof. Werner Weppner, Germany

1993-1995: Prof. Osamu Yamamoto, Japan

1991-1993: Prof. Gregory Farrington, USA

1989-1991: Prof. Bruno Scrosati, Italy

1987-1989: Prof. Robert Huggins, USA

Past recipient of the ISSI Senior Scientist Award

The first ISSI Senior Award will be presented to Prof. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University and President of the ISSI from 2009-2011. Prof. Whittingham, and each subsequent ISSI Senior Award recipient, will present a special invited talk at the respective SSI conference. This bi-annual award consists of a prize of ISSI Life Membership, complimentary SSI meeting registration for and travel assistance to the conference at which Award is to be presented. Please note that the award will not be given in a year in which there is no appropriate candidate.

Prof. M. Stanley Whittingham's special invited talk at SSI-21 in Padua is entitled:

“Solid State Ionics – The Key to the Discovery, Introduction and Domination of Lithium Batteries for Portable Energy Storage”

In 1967 a revolution began in solid state electrochemistry when Ford announced the high ionic mobility of sodium ions in beta alumina, a highly non-stoichiometric material. To measure the ionic conductivity of these materials, mixed ion and electron conducting electrodes were required such as Li_xV₂O₅ or Na_xWO₃. The concept of non-stoichiometry was not a part of the battery community’s language; Dalton’s Law still prevailed. The use of mixed conductors with fast ion conduction led to the recognition that intercalation reactions themselves could be used to store energy, particularly when the mobile ion was lithium. Early efforts focused predominantly on layered structures, such as Li_xTiS₂ and Li_xV₂O₅. Exxon briefly commercialized Li_xTiS₂ using a LiAl anode (Whittingham); this was followed by MoliEnergy with Li_xMoS₂ using a pure Li anode (Dahn), which led to a number of safety issues. It was not until an intercalation anode, C₆Li (Basu) was combined (SONY) with LiCoO₂ (Goodenough) that a commercially viable battery became available. Such batteries now dominate portable energy storage and even are entering MWh size grid storage. Each one of the components depends on an understanding of Solid State Ionics to be successful. However, even today Li cells only store 11-25% of their theoretical capacity. We need to “close this gap” by enhancing both the ionic mobility and the electron mobility in the materials, so that thicker electrodes can be used. There is also a resurgence of interest today in solid electrolytes that would enable the use of pure lithium anodes. These issues will be discussed together with a projection into the future. Many thanks are due to Esso (now ExxonMobil), US DOE, Stanford U. and many colleagues for support over the last decades.

ISSI Board statement on the war against Ukraine:

The board of the International Society for Solid-State Ionics (ISSI) expresses our shock and condemnation of Russia's violent attack on Ukraine, the bloodshed, and the crises this war inflicts on its people and the world. Our thoughts are with students and researchers in Ukraine in your daily struggle to survive and work. Your suffering causes us to reflect on violence also in other parts of the world. As a very small token of our support, we waive the registration fee for any Ukrainian participant, including foreign nationals studying in Ukraine, that would be able to attend the upcoming SSI-23 in Boston this summer 2022.