The need for new energy technologies grows with the increasing concern about global climate change, limited resources, and the need to bring energy to remote areas.

What do we mean by new energy technology?

• Let us start with technology that considerably improves existing technology to make more efficient processes.
  Certain processes can be initiated or accelerated by catalysts, certain barriers can be lowered so that a reaction can proceed perhaps with less heat or less additives. Catalysts such as these can be applied to a number of topical processes, such as hydrogen fuel cells and preparing biodiesel from waste oil.

• Other technologies come under the renewable energy bracket, those whose energy comes directly or indirectly from the sun, such as solar power or hydrogen production by means of synthetic photosynthesis. It has been argued that all of our energy needs can be fulfilled by the capture of sunlight, but there is still a long way to go before we can achieve that goal. To get there we will need increasingly active and selective catalysts.

The latest issue of ChemCatChem is a Special Issue, which contains the most up-to-date catalysis for new energy technologies.
The guest editors De Chen (left), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, and Chang-Jun Liu, Tianjin University, China, describe in their editorial their perspective of the current state of catalysis for new energy technologies.

• Special Issue: Catalysis for New Energy Technologies
  ChemCatChem 2011, 3 (3), 421–615.
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  Editorial: A Current Perspective on Catalysis for New Energy Technologies,
  De Chen, Chang-Jun Liu
  ChemCatChem 2011, 3 (3), 423–425.
  DOI: 10.1002/cctc.201100046