Israel

The 2004 Annual Meeting of the Israel Group for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (IGTAC) took place on Thursday, May 27 at the Edmund Safra Givat-Ram Campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was a small meeting, which started in the afternoon, with 36 participants from the different institutions in Israel. Dr. Moshe Ben-Yair from the Israel Standard Institute in Tel-Aviv chaired the Oral Session. Profsssor Isaac Lapides from the Institute of Chemistry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented the Annual Plenary Lecture. Professor Lapides emigrated to Israel in 1991 from Russia. He spoke on the intercalation of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) by different kaolinites. In his lecture he described the history of investigations of this important reaction, compared studies carried out in laboratories in the previous Soviet Union and Eastern Europe with studies from Western laboratories. In the last fifteen years there has been much collaboration, which has resulted in progress in this area. There are still many discrepancies in the results reported in the literature, however, probably due to the different types of kaolinite used by the various research groups. He also presented his recent DTA results in this study.

There were three Key-Lectures, all presented by PhD students. Mrs. Malka Epstein from the Tel-Hai Academic College in Kiriat-Shmone, the Upper Galilee, spoke on recent thermal analysis investigations of the adsorption of anionic dyes by the clay mineral montmorillonite. Mr. Zohar Yermiyahu from the Department of Inorganic Chemistry of the Hebrew University described the use of curve fitting in the thermo-XRD-analysis of organo-clays. Mr. Shay Hashuv from the Cassali Institute of Applied Chemistry in Jerusalem described new applications of DSC in the study of polymorphism in medical materials.

Mrs. Malka Epstein presents her key-lecture "Thermal analysis of he adsorption of organic anionic dyes by montmorillonite"

Professor Shlomo Shoval from the Open University of Tel-Aviv chaired the Poster session, which followed the oral presentations. There were twelve posters presented by IGTAC members from different academic institutions and also from companies.

The Oral Session during the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Israel Group for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry at the Seminar Room of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the Hebrew University Campus in Jerusalem.

During the Conference Dinner, the publication of two new books edited by two of our members was celebrated. Professor Ithamar Pelly, from Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Chairperson of IGTAC, congratulated the editors in the name of the Group. One book, "Natural and Laboratory-Simulated Thermal Geochemical Processes", edited by Professor Rafi Raphael Ikan from The Department of Organic Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and published recently by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, was described in the previous issue of ICTAC-News. Professor Nissim Garti from the Cassali Institute of Applied Chemistry, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem edited the second book, "Thermal Behavior of Dispersed Systems" recently published by Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York.

Prof. Isaak Lapides presents the Annual-Plenary-Lecture "Thermal analysis study of the intercalation of DMSO into kaolinite. Old and new studies."

This book discusses the recent advances in the correlations of structure and reactivity relationships of micelles, liposomes, microemulsions and emulsions by thermal behavior measurements. The book contains 500 pages. Contributors from different countries wrote the thirteen chapters of this book. The first chapter, "Calorimetric investigations of solutions of reversed micelles" was written by V.T. Liveri. The second chapter, "Thermodynamics and phase separation kinetics of microemulsions" was written by D. Volmer. The third chapter, "Subzero temperature behavior of water in microemulsions" was written by S. Ezrahi, A. Aserin, M. Fanun and N. Garti. The fourth chapter "DSC analysis of surfactant-based microstructures" was written by P.C. Schultz, J.F.A. Soltero and J.E. Puig. The fifth chapter "Effects of cooling-heating cycles on emulsions" was written by B. Founconnier, J. Avendano Gomez and D. Clausse. The sixth chapter "Thermal analysis of self assembling complex liquids" was written by D. Senatra. The seventh chapter "Water behavior in phospholipids bilayer systems" was written by M. Kodama and H. Aoki. The eighth chapter "Heat evolution of the self-assembly of amphiphiles in aqueous solutions" was written by D. Lichtenberg, E. Opatowski and M.M. Kozlov. Z. Kiraly wrote the ninth chapter "Calorimetric methods for the study of adsorption of surfactants at solid/solution interfaces". I. Dekany wrote the tenth chapter "Microcalorimetric control of liquid sorption on hydrophilic/hydrophobic surfaces in nonaqueous dispersions". H. Fueredi-Milhofer wrote the eleventh chapter "The formation and transformation of crystalline dispersions as studied by thermal analysis". N.F. Vincekovic and V. Tomasic wrote the twelfth chapter "Solid state transitions of surfactant crystals". A. Raemy, P. Lambert and N. Garti wrote the thirteenth chapter "Thermal behavior of foods and food constituents".

Professor Menachem Steinberg, who had been the Chairman of ICTAC 9 Congress in Jerusalem, in 1988, congratulated Professor Jaroslav Sestak from the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic for the recent appearance of his book "Heat, Thermal Analysis and Society". In 1988 Professor Sestak was the Winner of the Bodenheimer Award of the Israel Group of Thermal Analysis and during ICTAC 9 Congress he presented the Bodenheimer Memorial Lecture.

The meeting was organized by the Institute of Chemistry of the Hebrew University. Professor Ithamar Pelly, Professor Shlomo Shoval and Professor Shmuel Yariv were members of the Organizing Committee.

Shmuel Yariv