From 7th-11th August 23, the 72nd Denver X-ray conference on Applications of X-ray Analysis was held in Lombard near Chicago in the USA and was attended by 375 participants. The conference is held annually. It is unique in hosting a large exhibition of instrument component manufacturers. The conference is organized by the ICDD the International Center of Diffraction Data and MDI Material Data.
The working group was represented by six papers and four participants: Sophie Wunderlich, Alena Schnickmann, Sven Hampel and Ursula Fittschen. The contributions were very well received, Sophie Wunderlich presented in her invited lecture on recent results obtained at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) on vanadium recycling of steel mill slags. Alena Schnickmann and Sven Hampel presented their results from the DFG priority program PP2315 on engineered artificial minerals. Sven Hampel also gave another talk on the investigation of ion diffusion in polymer electrolyte membranes and presented a poster on his work on the construction and use of a picoliter printer. He has been honored for his work with a total of three awards and a total of $1250.
Another highlight was the presentation of the Jenkins Award for Lifetime Achievement to Prof. Dr. Tim Elam, who has not only established a database of X-ray fundamental parameters, but is currently primarily overseeing the analysis of micro-XRF data from the recent Mars mission of NASA's Perseverance rover. The next Denver Conference will return in 2024 to Colorado, to Westminster near Denver.
