The development and prospects of carbon science—A report on the annual world conference on carbon, Carbon 2014

The 2014 Annual World Conference on Carbon (Carbon 2014), hosted by the Korean Carbon Society, was held in Jeju, Korea, June 29–July 4, 2014. 859 attendees from 35 countries/regions participated in the conference, and 729 papers were accepted for presentation, including 5 plenary lectures, 10 keynote talks, 46 invited lectures, 273 oral presentations and 395 posters, covering 7 topics: graphene; carbon nanotubes and related carbon nanomaterials; carbon precursors, carbon fibers and composites; industrial graphites, carbon industry news, and carbon blacks; porous carbons, carbon for health and environmental protection; carbons for sustainable energy conversion and storage, carbons for energy saving; analysis, characterization, computation and modeling of carbons. Research on and development of nanocarbons are quite active and in particular, graphene received tremendous interest. Rapid progress has also been made on the electrochemical properties, energy conversion and energy storage applications of carbon materials. [New Carbon Materials 2014, 29(5): I–III].