The 5th International Conference on Hydrogen Safety (ICHS 2013) was held in Brussels, Belgium on September 9–11, 2013, under the auspices of the International Association for Hydrogen Safety (IA HySafe). The conference was hosted by the Joint Research Centre (Institute for Energy and Transport) of the European Commission, which aims to improve the public awareness and trust in hydrogen technologies by communicating a better understanding of both the hazards and risks associated with hydrogen and its management. The first four conferences in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 succeeded in attracting the most relevant experts from all over the world, by providing an open platform for the presentation and discussion of new findings, information and data on hydrogen safety – from basic research to applied development and to standardization and regulatory issues.
The conference gathered approximately 200 delegates from all over the world. At least half of the delegates came from non-EU countries, including Japan, China, Brazil, Russia, Korea, USA and Canada. ICHS 2013 brought together engineers and scientists from research centres and universities, automotive industries, insurance companies, gas equipment and refueling station manufacturers, aerospace manufacturers, hydrogen system and fuel cell manufacturers, testing and certifying bodies, standardisation and regulatory bodies and governmental organisations.
During the conference, 100 contributed papers were presented in addition to invited plenary lectures. Due to the limited space dedicated to this Special Section by the International Journal or Hydrogen Energy, the selection of the articles has been difficult. The selected articles are those that best represent the nature and level of the conference. A complete set of the papers presented at ICHS 2013 can be found on the conference website: (http://www.ichs2013.com/index.php/conference-presentations-and-papers). Our sincere apologies are due to the colleagues whose papers have not been selected for publication in this Special Section.
The IA-Hysafe will continue its activities by preparing the next edition of the International Conference on Hydrogen Safety (ICHS 2015), which will be held in Tokyo, Japan, on October 19–21, 2015.
Considering the Journal Editors' interest in the series of ICHS conferences, we are looking forward to continuing cooperation with the International Journal or Hydrogen Energy in publishing selected papers of ICHS 2015 in one of the next Special Sections of the Journal.
The Special Section's Guest Editorial Board:
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Professor Marco Carcassi (University of Pisa)
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Dr. Jennifer Wen (The University of Warwick)
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Dr. Geoff Chamberlain (Waverton Consultancy Ltd.)
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Dr. Sergey Dorofeev (FM Global)