IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry is a biennial global conference aiming to promote the developments in green chemistry and technology worldwide. The 5th IUPAC International Conference on Green Chemistry was held in Durban (South Africa), 17-21 August 2014.The main objective of the conference is to emphasize the importance of green chemistry for sustainable development, and to promote novel research and collaborations, providing a platform for discussing how to promote the industrialization of biomass conversion.

The conference is a multidisciplinary event considering all the major areas of green chemistry, including green synthesis processes, catalysis, environmentally benign solvents, energy storage, biofuels, green chemistry education, policies, and many other interesting topics. Special attention also is given to the roles of green chemistry in fast-growing economies and to the promotion of green chemistry in the African continent.

Prof. Tao Zhang was invited to attend the conference and to give the first plenary lecture following the opening ceremony. The title is "Catalytic Conversion of Cellulose to Ethylene Glycol: Discovery, Mechanism and Challenge". The conference hall was full and the atmosphere was fantastic. Prof. Zhang and many other famous experts in this field had spirited discussion after the lecture.

In this conference, we gave a well publicity to the systemic work in our group on biomass catalytic conversion. On the other hand, we also caught the most frontier research progresses in the world. We could expect new breakthroughs in the field of biomass catalytic conversion in our group and establish more international collaboration.