This symposium will showcase cutting-edge research and practical advances that reduce environmental footprints, valorize biomass, and enable resilient, low-carbon food value chains. We welcome original contributions spanning fundamental chemistry, process design, materials development and/or life-cycle analyses that demonstrate measurable gains in sustainability, safety, and scalability. 

Key research themes are:

1. Biomass valorization & renewable feedstocks — conversion of agricultural residues and underutilized biomass into platform chemicals, functional ingredients and high-value co-products to close resource loops.

2. Green solvents and solvent-minimizing technologies — implementation of solvent alternatives (e.g., deep eutectic solvents, supercritical CO₂, aqueous two-phase systems) and solvent-free process designs for safer and cleaner food production.

3. Sustainable materials and food packaging — design and scale-up of biodegradable, compostable and active packaging materials derived from renewable sources, with attention to food safety and end-of-life pathways.

4. Nanotechnology applied to food and agriculture – development of nano-enabled delivery systems, and functional materials that enhance nutrient bioavailability, improve crop protection, enable real-time quality monitoring, and support precision agriculture while ensuring safety, traceability, and regulatory compliance. 

This symposium will explore cutting-edge advancements integrating biodiversity, nature-based solutions, nanotechnology, and biotechnology to address urgent challenges in sustainable agriculture. As global pressures to produce more food increase, from soil degradation to biodiversity loss and food insecurity, innovative, science-based strategies are essential.

The session will highlight nanotechnology-based fertilizers and pesticides, biopolymer-based vehicles, seed nanopriming, bio-based agricultural inputs, and nanosensors for plant and environmental monitoring. Contributions will also address biotechnological approaches to forest restoration, carbon sequestration, and enhancing soil-plant interactions aligned with climate adaptation. A central focus will be on innovation and university-industry collaboration, with discussion of regulatory perspectives, technological readiness, and pathways to translate research into sustainable, market-ready agricultural solutions.

This symposium offers a dynamic platform to connect scientists, industry partners, and policymakers, fostering global collaboration on pioneering, nature-inspired technologies that enhance food security, ecosystem health, and climate resilience. 

This symposium focuses on the intersection of advanced materials synthesis and environmental sustainability, emphasizing the application of green chemistry principles to develop innovative materials that address pressing environmental challenges. By promoting cleaner synthetic routes, renewable feedstocks, circularity, and low-energy processing, the symposium aims to accelerate the development of sustainable material technologies that support global environmental and technological goals.  Traditional materials production often depends on resource-intensive, energy-demanding, and environmentally harmful processes.

To overcome these limitations, the symposium emphasizes the transformative potential of environmentally benign synthesis, sustainable materials design, and scalable green manufacturing. By uniting researchers, engineers, industrial practitioners, and policymakers, this event will foster cross-disciplinary collaborations that advance sustainable innovation in materials science. The symposium welcomes participants involved in materials chemistry, environmental chemistry, nanotechnology, chemical engineering, sustainability science, computational materials design, and related fields. Submissions covering fundamental research, applied studies, pilot-scale demonstrations, field applications, and AI/ML-assisted sustainable materials development are strongly encouraged.

Achieving sustainability in polymer science is central to the future of the chemical industry. As we move toward ambitious decarbonization goals and a circular economy, innovation in polymer design, synthesis, processing, and performance is essential. This symposium will highlight advances in utilizing renewable, non-fossil, and waste-derived feedstocks for polymer production, as well as new synthetic strategies that minimize waste and energy consumption.

Emphasis will be placed on green chemistry approaches that enable the development of renewable and degradable alternatives with high-impact technological applications without compromising material performance. This interdisciplinary symposium, which brings together researchers from the fundamental and applied sciences, will showcase cutting-edge efforts to balance sustainability and functionality in polymeric materials, fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue to accelerate sustainable innovation. 

Mechanochemistry has rapidly evolved from a niche approach to a transformative methodology across the chemical sciences. By enabling chemical reactivity in solid-state through mechanical energy, mechanochemistry aligns naturally with global efforts toward greener and more sustainable chemical processes. The symposium aims to bring together researchers from across the Atlantic Basin to discuss recent advances, emerging concepts, and practical applications of mechanochemical methods in chemistry, materials science, and molecular design.

The session will cover both fundamental and applied aspects of mechanochemistry: from understanding solid-state reactivity, defect formation, and reaction pathways, to the development of advanced functional materials such as catalysts, nanomaterials, metal–organic frameworks, and energy-relevant solids. The symposium will showcase how ball milling, twin-screw extrusion, and related techniques have opened possibilities for building new molecules and materials, revealing unusual reactivity patterns and enabling more sustainable synthetic routes.

By promoting dialogue among established scientists, early-career researchers, and interdisciplinary collaborators, this symposium aims to strengthen connections between research groups across the Americas, Europe, and Africa and to reflect growing the dynamism of the global mechanochemistry community. 

Growing global demand for freshwater and critical energy materials is rendering the traditional “treat-and-discharge” linear model of water treatment obsolete. This symposium proposes a paradigm shift toward a circular “Brine Nexus”. Rather than viewing brines from desalination plants and industrial or agricultural effluents as waste streams, this symposium positions them as untapped reservoirs of water, energy, nutrients, and critical minerals.

Harvesting these resources offers a unique opportunity to simultaneously address global challenges in water security, resource independence, clean energy generation, and contaminant mitigation, advancing a truly circular and sustainable model for the future:

1. Water Security: Advances in next-generation membrane technologies (RO, NF, FO) and electrochemical processes for energy-efficient purification and improved wastewater discharge. 

2. Resource Recovery and Independence: Novel selective sorbents, Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), and solvent extraction methods for recovering nutrients and high-value critical elements directly from brine concentrates and wastewaters, enabling the circular economy and securing supply chains for the energy transition. 

3. Contaminant Mitigation: Identifying and treating emerging contaminants of ecotoxicological and toxicological concern to protect ecosystems and public health across LATAM countries and beyond, ensuring clean drinking water while pioneering a full life-cycle approach to chemical engineering.

4. Clean Energy: Innovations in “Blue Energy”, utilizing Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO), Reverse Electrodialysis (RED), and nanofluidics to harvest the entropy of mixing between high-salinity brines and low-salinity streams.

This symposium aims to foster interaction, collaboration, and knowledge exchange across the Atlantic Basin—uniting researchers from North America, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. We welcome research ranging from fundamental materials chemistry and advanced membrane design, to non-targeted analysis and new approach methods (NAMS) to screen and identify emerging pollutants of concern, and to pilot-scale system integration and techno-economic analysis. Together, we will foster the international collaboration necessary to transition toward delivering high-quality water and high-value resources through an energy-efficient, circular economy. 

Reactions of biomass-derived species are challenging because these molecules are poorly volatile and highly functionalized, leading to a need for highly selective reactions that occur in the liquid phase.  Similarly, oxygenated species obtained from waste plastic upcycling or CO2 electroreduction are again often highly functionalized and require selective catalysts for sequential valorization. Microporous and mesoporous materials can be used as catalysts that can achieve high selectivity in such reactions and which introduce unique solvating environments inside the material pores that drive high overall yields. 

This symposium will focus on fundamental aspects of catalysis by microporous and mesoporous materials to build systematic understanding that will enable applications for both liquid- and vapor-phase upgrading of oxygenates obtained from renewable and alternative carbon resources. Topics include but are not limited to: 1 – Synthesis and characterization of micro- and mesoporous materials 2 – First principles calculation and experimental measurement of adsorption energies, activation barriers, and rates 3 – Spectroscopic measurements of reactions under in situ and operando conditions 4 – Kinetics analyses of reactions of oxygenates catalyzed by micro- and mesoporous materials 

To enhance student member engagement, ACS is launching a new initiative called the ChemBiz Pitch Competition. This competition serves as a competitive platform for ACS student chapters to research innovative ideas and present potential solutions to global challenges. In addition, students will present their approach and findings before a panel of judges and a live audience at the conference. 

Undergraduate research is a transformative experience that fosters scientific literacy, critical thinking, and professional skills. However, access to research opportunities remains uneven globally, limiting the development of a truly interconnected scientific community.

This symposium will explore innovative models for creating and sustaining international undergraduate research programs in chemistry and related disciplines. It will highlight approaches that leverage digital platforms, virtual labs, and emerging technologies to overcome geographic and resource barriers, while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Participants will learn how global partnerships between institutions, industry, and professional societies can broaden participation, strengthen capacity in underrepresented regions, and prepare students for careers in a rapidly evolving scientific landscape. The session will feature case studies, best practices, and actionable strategies for designing inclusive, sustainable programs that nurture the next generation of globally engaged scientists. 

The American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) has been working across sectors with a broad spectrum of stakeholders to promote the principles of green chemistry for close to three decades. As ACS celebrates 150 years of advancing science and building communities across the globe in 2026, we are highlighting the rapidly expanding role that green chemistry plays in building a more sustainable future for the chemistry enterprise, from education to industry and beyond.

At the foundation of our shared vision for leveraging the power of chemistry lies education – the starting point for every chemist regardless of their chosen career path. Far more than a set of tools to be applied in the laboratory, the 12 principles of green chemistry form the basis for a holistic, inclusive mindset that helps us contextualize our choices as chemists and compels us to take responsibility for how our field evolves into the future.

In honor of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #4 “Quality Education”, this interactive symposium will showcase global perspectives as shared by green chemistry champions invited from communities around the Atlantic Basin. Acknowledging the diversity of communities represented by the eight societies sponsoring the conference, invited speakers, panelists, and facilitators will comment on shared values and goals and address challenges inherent in building global partnerships that promote sustainability.

This session will be the last in a series of five thematically linked events programmed at ACS-supported events throughout 2026. Taken together, these five symposia will provide a detailed snapshot of where we are now and where we need to go to best prepare students at all levels for the complex challenges they will face as the innovators of the future. 

Student communities around the world play an essential role in advancing chemistry through activities that flourish beyond formal coursework. This symposium showcases diverse models of non-formal learning, from large, structured programs such as American Chemical Society student chapters around the world to independent, student- or mentor-led outreach initiatives that leverage local strengths and operate beyond traditional frameworks. By bringing together students, faculty advisers, community leaders, and practitioners, the session highlights how local and global networks cultivate scientific curiosity, professional skills, and a shared chemistry identity. Contributions examining assessment practices and research on the educational impact of these learning experiences are especially encouraged, as they provide valuable evidence for strengthening and scaling such efforts. The symposium will also offer a space to establish new connections and foster future collaborations among individuals and groups committed to expanding meaningful learning opportunities. Overall, it aims to illuminate the transformative potential of student-driven efforts—whether highly organized or grassroots—in building an interconnected, equitable, and resilient global chemistry community. 

Green chemistry education is central to advancing a more sustainable and equitable future. Equipping chemists with the skills to design safer solutions is essential, but long-lasting change and impact depend on collective engagement across the entire chemistry community. Because green chemistry is inherently interdisciplinary, its greatest strength emerges with collaborators from diverse backgrounds bringing complementary expertise, shared values, and a commitment to shaping systems that protect both human health and the environment. 

The Collective Action in Green Chemistry Education: Global Communities Driving Change symposium will feature innovative and community-driven approaches that advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) through the lens of green chemistry education.

Attendees will learn and discuss how educators, researchers, industry leaders, and organizations worldwide are learning together to implement strategies that accelerate the adoption of more sustainable approaches and empower educators to bring green and sustainable chemistry to their courses and programs. Presentations will highlight practices and initiatives that demonstrate how collaboration can catalyze change at local, regional, and global scales, further driving directions for building a global community committed to building a sustainable future through chemistry.

This work describes the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) in chemistry education and demonstrates how these models can support data analysis in both unsupervised and supervised methods. 

ACS Ignite is a platform to showcase breakthrough ideas and inspire the next generation of deep science innovators.  The event will feature 10 successful innovators / startups who are building transformative products in the deep science space, sharing their journeys, challenges, and impact. It will also offer startups to access funding, mentorship, and networks to accelerate their business.  It supports early-stage ventures by enhancing visibility, fostering strategic partnerships, and providing professional development. The program also enables industries and investors to identify disruptive technologies in their infancy.  Alongside the showcase, attendees will participate in an Innovation Bootcamp, a hands-on session introducing the fundamentals of innovation, from ideation and validation to scaling and commercialization. By combining real-world success stories with practical learning, ACS Ignite aims to empower researchers, students, and entrepreneurs to translate scientific discoveries into impactful solutions. This unique platform fosters collaboration, creativity, and knowledge exchange, strengthening the ecosystem for science-driven entrepreneurship. 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI-ML) are becoming mainstream in automated chemical processing, including a variety of chemical and physical sensors inputted into operational technology. This symposium will hold presentations on computational methods, experimental breakthroughs, and practical applications. Symposium proposals are invited that examine the role of AI and ML in advancing chemistry via data-driven models, raw material selection, operating conditions (e.g., Bayesian analysis) for applications include agriculture and food processing, drug design, polymerization, and responsible energy use and a circular economy.

Contributions may also highlight the importance of addressing global disparities in access, ethical AI technology, with a focus on collaborative approaches. This session further considers the growing influence of AI in scientific publishing, including issues of transparency, responsible use, and best practices in communication. 

This symposium explores how bio-based materials, green-chemistry pathways, and AI-driven design can accelerate sustainable innovation across the Atlantic Basin. As global priorities shift toward low-carbon economies, resource efficiency, and circular manufacturing, chemistry is uniquely positioned to provide scalable, affordable, and high-impact solutions. The session will spotlight advances in renewable feedstocks, biodegradable materials, solvent-free and water-saving synthesis, and catalytic systems that reduce toxicity, energy demand, and environmental footprint. Aligned with the ABCChem 2026 theme: “Chemistry for Global Impact: Strategic Partnerships for Sustainable Innovation” the symposium emphasizes trans-Atlantic collaboration and responsible chemistry.

Presentations will feature new research on agricultural-waste valorization, green nanomaterials for energy and water applications, bio-inspired catalysis, and circular-economy strategies such as upcycling, advanced recycling, and materials redesign. Additionally, the symposium will highlight the emerging role of AI and machine learning in predicting material performance, optimizing reaction conditions, accelerating discovery, and enabling sustainable industrial processes. The symposium also addresses equity and access, focusing on how green and digital technologies can support low-resource communities in Africa, South America, and the Caribbean.

Through invited and contributed talks, the session will bring together chemists from academia, industry, government, and NGOs, promoting partnerships that support climate action, responsible production, economic resilience, and scientific advancement across the Atlantic Basin. This session aligns with ABCChem’s commitment to inclusion, diversity, and broad participation, with at least 40% of session time allocated to contributed oral presentations and speakers drawn from diverse backgrounds, institutions, and career stages. 

This symposium explores how artificial intelligence can drive innovation management to advance sustainable manufacturing processes and materials. By integrating AI with sustainability paradigms, we aim to highlight practical pathways for transforming industrial practices into models of responsibility and resilience. Sessions will examine how smart manufacturing can leverage data-driven insights to reduce waste, optimize resource use, and accelerate the adoption of sustainable materials. Beyond technology, the symposium emphasizes leadership and collaboration—recognizing that faculty, industry, and students share a mission to cultivate purposeful innovation.

Through case studies, interactive discussions, and cross-disciplinary perspectives, participants will gain tools to align industrial expertise with academic vision. The ultimate goal is to inspire a new generation of leaders who see manufacturing not only as production, but as stewardship: building systems that are efficient, ethical, and sustainable for the future. 

Nanomaterials with at least one dimension between ~1–100 nm exhibit unusual physical and chemical behaviors that are distinctly different from the bulk matter.  Unique quantum confinement, enhanced surface reactivity, tunable optical emission, and strong electromagnetic field localization endow them with capabilities ideally suited for complex biomedical tasks. Yet achieving these desirable features relies on carefully planned synthesis and rational design, where parameters such as composition, morphology and surface chemistry need to be precisely controlled.  

This symposium will highlight recent progress in crafting nanoscale platforms, such as quantum dots, plasmonic nanoparticles, upconverting nanoparticles and carbon dots, which exploit nanoscale phenomena for next-generation biomedical technologies. The symposium will focus on the deliberate synthetic control to tailor optical, electronic, catalytic, and biological properties for biomedical applications. In particular, the symposium will emphasize multifunctional nanostructures that combine components with different properties, such as plasmonic/fluorescent, and magnetic/photoluminescent nanoparticles. These merged functionalities open new doors for biomedical innovation by allowing a single platform to sense, image, deliver drugs, and diagnose and treat diseases. Their ability to perform multiple high-level tasks simultaneously gives them great potential for applications requiring integrated diagnosis and therapy (including photothermal and photodynamic), and real-time monitoring of treatment effects and dynamic biological processes.  

The symposium will show how such advanced materials are transforming biosensing, bioimaging, diagnostics, point-of-care detection and personalized medicine. The symposium will bring together researchers from chemistry, materials science, biology, engineering, and medical research of all levels, including professors, postdoctoral fellows and students, promote the exchange of ideas in the general field of Nano-Biomedicine, stimulate interdisciplinary and international collaboration and inspire new directions in Nano-Biomedicine innovation.  

The rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into molecular sciences is reshaping how researchers approach drug discovery and development. This symposium will bring together experts from academia, national laboratories, and industry to discuss emerging AI-driven methodologies that accelerate and transform molecular design, from virtual screening to property prediction, reactivity modeling, and synthesis planning. By focusing on the intersection of AI, chemistry, and materials science, the session aims to highlight advances that bridge traditional molecular discovery with next-generation computational technologies.

Topics will include AI-enhanced chemoinformatics, machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs) for molecular dynamics and reactivity, generative and reinforcement learning for molecular design, and data-driven approaches to reaction prediction, optimization, and automatization. The symposium will also feature contributions on multimodal learning that integrate quantum chemistry, molecular simulations, and experimental data, as well as discussions on data curation, model interpretability, and reproducibility. 

This cross-disciplinary session will serve as a forum for exchanging ideas, identifying emerging challenges, and fostering collaborations among scientists developing and applying AI tools to accelerate molecular discovery. By emphasizing both methodological innovation and real-world applications, the symposium will provide a comprehensive perspective on how AI is revolutionizing drug design and development, from atomistic modeling to decision-making in pharmaceutical pipelines. 

This symposium focuses on one of the most promising emerging research directions in modern chemistry: the development of hybrid systems that combine DNA aptamers—programmable molecular recognition elements—with sustainable biogenic materials to create innovative functional interfaces for selective environmental sensing and water purification. This area is rapidly evolving, with new chemical mechanisms, coupling strategies, and structure–function relationships being discovered at an accelerating pace. 

Aptamers provide tunable selectivity through controlled folding and sequence-encoded binding motifs. When integrated with biogenic substrates such as lignin, cellulose, calabash shell, coconut shell powder, or chitosan, they produce hybrid materials with new and synergistic capabilities. These include enhanced specificity for toxic metals (e.g., Hg, Pb, As, Cd), responsive adsorption behaviors, unique thermodynamic signatures, and emergent interfacial phenomena not present in traditional biosorbents or synthetic polymers. Because this field is still developing, many fundamental chemical questions remain open—such as the mechanisms governing aptamer–surface interactions, conformational dynamics upon immobilization, the roles of charge distribution and hydrogen bonding at hybrid interfaces, and the integration of AI-assisted aptamer prediction with material design. These questions place the topic squarely within emerging chemical research that is shaping the next generation of functional materials.  

The symposium brings together researchers across the Atlantic Basin to explore new methods, recent breakthroughs, and the conceptual foundations of this interdisciplinary field. It will highlight chemical principles that underpin hybrid recognition, sustainable materials engineering, and environmentally relevant molecular design, positioning aptamer–biogenic materials as a key emerging area in the chemical sciences. 

This symposium is for researchers pushing the frontiers in analytical chemistry. 

This symposium is for researchers pushing the frontiers in biological chemistry. 

This symposium is for researchers pushing the frontiers in inorganic chemistry. 

This symposium is for researchers pushing the frontiers in organic chemistry. 

This symposium is for researchers pushing the frontiers in physical chemistry. 

To mark the American Chemical Society’s 150th anniversary milestone, ACS Publications presents the JACS Symposium Series. The JACS symposium at ABCChem will be the capstone event of 2026’s eight international, in-person events to inspire researchers worldwide.  The Symposium event at ABC Chem will feature exclusive keynote lectures and a dynamic panel discussion with leading innovators.