Dear members of JASE and guests:

It is my privilege to succeed Dr. Satoshi ASANO of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. as the 17th president of the Japan Association of Solvent Extraction (JASE) in 2025 for 2 years. I would like to present the cordial greetings to all the JASE members and related colleagues will take the responsibility of promoting the smooth management and serving for progressing our science and technology as a president. JASE is a unique association fusing and bonding with those of various scientific fields related to solvent extraction and relevant researches, such as analytical chemistry, resources and recycling engineering, chemical engineering, atomic energy engineering, and hydrometallurgy. Currently, solvent extraction or liquid-liquid extraction is an important method as well as concept in wider fields of science and technology. Our association has several significant activities for the members of JASE and scientific society in the world. One of our activities is the symposium on solvent extraction. Since 1982, the symposium has been held every year. In last two years, we have opened joint symposium with Japan Society of Ion Exchange (JSIE). The 42nd Symposium on Solvent Extraction was held at Nagaoka in October 19-20, 2023 with the 37th Symposium on Ion Exchange by an organizing committee chaired by Prof. Suzuki who are the board members of JSIE. The 43rd Symposium on Solvent Extraction was held at Mito in October 30-November 1, 2024 with the 38th Symposium on Ion Exchange by an organizing committee chaired by Prof. Ohashi of our side. The 44th Symposium on Solvent Extraction will be held at Akita in October 30-November 1, 2025 with the 39th Symposium on Ion Exchange by an organizing committee chaired by Prof. Takahashi, board members of JSIE. Partnered up with Prof. Hirayama as a President of JSIE, joint symposium will be continued further several occasions. I appreciate your joining to joint symposium! In joint symposium 2024, sponsor company financially supported for presentation awards of excellent students. I would like to request joining companies for such sponsoring on joint symposium 2025 and later ones. The second of our activities is the international journal of “Solvent Extraction Research and Development, Japan ” (SERDJ), which has been semiyearly published. Thanks to the efforts of Prof. Nishihama as an executive editorial office and Prof. Tsukahara as the previous Chief Editor editorial office, the entire process from submission of papers to review and publication has been completely digitized, and all back numbers are freely available on the JSIE website. Since 2011, the journal has been registered on J-Stage, and by obtaining DOI numbers, citations from search engines and other sources have increased. The Impact Factor (IF) of the journal has been 0.85 on average for the 10 years period from 2014 to 2023. Furthermore, submitting system of SERDJ was transferred to Editorial system from July, 2024. https://www.editorialmanager.com/serdj/default.aspx. With this change, all papers submitted, consequently accepted have been published based on CC-BY 4.0. We have also offered publication fee to all corresponding authors even those from foreign countries. We have had great change, which will possibly affect the numbers of submitted and accepted articles, so I sincerely offer your active cooperation for submitting your excellent articles. Solvent extraction technique has been utilized to purify highly valuable compound in fields of medicine, petroleum, and so on, particularly to purify critical metal ion for production of many advanced materials. Recently, various efforts have been made to reduce GHG emissions such as CO2 for the purpose of preventing global warming. Automobiles are rapidly shifting from gasoline vehicles to hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles. Lithium, nickel, and cobalt in the storage batteries required for hybrid and electric vehicles, lithium essential for lithium-ion batteries, rare earths used in motor magnets, and all platinum group metals used in fuel cells and exhaust gas purification are produced using solvent extraction technology. A large amount of photovoltaic panels and liquid crystal panels were faced to end of their useful lives, effective recovery of some critical metals has been required. Due to rapid and sharp rise of price of critical metals, the securing of metal resources increasingly become of importance. It is no exaggeration to say that solvent extraction is an indispensable technology for separating materials from resources, promoting recycling, and preserving the environment, and is a key technology for building the society of the future. I look forward to your participation in the activities of JASE from various fields of science and technology to open a new era of solvent extraction. Fusion with other technologies in various fields is absolutely necessary to deepen and proceed our own technology. I look forward to your participation in the activities of JASE from various fields of science and technology to open up a new era of solvent extraction.

Keisuke OHTO President of the Japan Association of Solvent Extraction (JASE) Saga University