Introductory remarks
As its title suggests, the purpose of this Discussion Meeting is to review the present state of the art in industrial electrochemistry. We have sought to bring together academic and industrial workers in this field as well as other interested participants. I hope that as the meeting proceeds, a cross-fertilization of ideas will occur both in the formal sessions and during the breaks. The organizers of this Meeting have given considerable thought to the order in which the different aspects of electrochemistry should be presented. Evidently we had to begin with the fundamentals, after which we decided to deal with the general aspects of electrosynthesis including the developing possibilities of supplying energy to biological processes by electrochem ical means. This led naturally to consideration of electrochemical engineering and electroanalytical methods for on-line control. In one session we shall move to a very practical application of electrochemistry, namely batteries. Beginning with Volta’s simple cell, this application is one of the oldest in electrochemistry. In spite of all the advances in the subject, the possibilities of new primary and secondary battery systems remain as wide as ever. I, for one, shall be most interested to hear the progress reports of our three speakers.