Catalysis for Global Development. Contributions around the Iberoamerican Federation of Catalysis

Following biennial meetings held since 1968, the Iberoamerican Federation of Catalysis Societies (FISoCat), the Portuguese Chemical Society (SPQ) and the University of Coimbra jointly organized the XXVI Iberoamerican Congress on Catalysis (CICat 2018), which took place in the historic city of Coimbra, Portugal, between the 9th and 14th of September 2018. CICat 2018 was of particular importance in the history of these events, as it marked the 50th anniversary since the beginning of this series of meetings—by far the most important in the field of catalysis in the Iberoamerican region. Associated with the commemoration of this event, this Special Issue, Catalysis for Global Development: Contributions around the Iberoamerican Federation of Catalysis, emerged to feature selected works presented at CICat 2018. Other possible additional contributions promoting linkages among catalytic science, technology, education, and culture plans and processes involved in cooperation programs and projects among the Iberoamerican Member States, as well as states and institutions of other regions, were also envisaged.

The topics of the conference covered various aspects of catalysis in all its diversity (environmental catalysis, industrial catalysis, oil refining, natural gas conversion and petrochemistry, catalyst design, preparation and characterization, sustainable processes and clean energies, fine chemistry, and other topics on biocatalysis, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis), as well other related areas. The diversity of the topics covered was evidenced by the 442 delegates from 20 countries, mostly Iberoamerican countries, attending the conference, and by the presentation of 510 works, together with five plenary lessons—one lesson alluding to the history of CICat to celebrate their 50 years—eight keynotes, and six awards given during the event.

Its extensive scope and interdisciplinarity affirm catalysis to be an essential part of the process and the chemical industry. Research in catalysis supports several strategic industrial sectors in Iberoamerica development through products and processes from energy to the manufacture of materials, and has implications for the development of digital applications and devices. Catalysis plays a crucial role in environmental protection, whether by recycling waste or by reducing gas emissions that contribute to increasing global warming—thereby opening new routes for eco-friendly processes and products that are sustainable and ecologically correct. It is on these topics and directly-related subjects that sixteen selected contributions from the Iberoamerican Federation of Catalysis are gathered in this Special Issue [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16].

We believe that the contributions published will serve as a source of inspiration and guidance to all those involved in the exciting field of catalysis, particularly for the young researchers and students taking their first steps into research on catalysis. We would like to thank the authors for their enthusiasm since the call for papers was opened, showing from the very earliest stages of the production of the Special Issue their motivation to contribute to this collection. Finally, we acknowledge the unmeasurable help of the assistant editors and reviewers involved, which allowed speeding up the production process and promoting the quality of the manuscripts presented in this Special Issue, making it, so far, the most successful conference issue in Catalysts.