Last week we held very successful 18^th IFRF Members’ Conference at Kardinal-Döpfner-Haus in Freising. The conference attended 77 participants from Europe, as well as from the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt.

The conference was opened by Leo Tognotti, IFRF Superintendent of Research, and followed by Tomasz Klajny – IFRF Director’s presentation, both about the update of the IFRF research, interests and services. The morning session also included two keynote lectures by Nick Syred talking about interactions of swirling flows with combustion, and Wiebren de Jong from TU Delft exploring the subject of thermo-chemical biomass conversion featuring Brisk project activities and achievements. The main topic of the two parallel sessions of the day were Emissions (Session A) and Gasification and Pyrolysis (Session B).

The second day was opened with a keynote lecture by Gerald Schmidt from (ALSTOM Boiler Deutschland GmbH) talking about flexible coal fired boilers. The morning sessions were concerned with Equipment and Facilities (Session C) as well as Oxy-gas (Session D). After lunch there were lunched parallel sessions of oxy-coal workshop, which also continued on Wednesday. The conference was closed with a keynote lecture by Filip Verplaetsen (KU Leuven/Adinex) on assessing explosion risk in oxy-coal combustion systems.

The Gala Dinner was held in the excellent venue, Weihenstephan brewery, the oldest operating brewery in the world!

We would like to thank the attendees for very positive feedback on the conference. Please note that the presentations and papers from this meeting will be soon available from the IFRF website.

Also this week, from Wednesday 3^rd June to Friday 5^th June, IFRF had its Executive Committee and Joint Committee 162 meetings at the same location. One of the main points discussed during those meetings was proposed relocation. The further information regarding the initiated relocation process will be provided to you soon.