The outside front cover features the paper Deactivation studies of a carbon supported AuPt nanoparticulate catalyst in the liquid-phase aerobic oxidation of 1,2-propanediol by Carmine D’Agostino, Yulia Ryabenkova, Peter J. Miedziak, Stuart H. Taylor, Graham J. Hutchings, Lynn F. Gladden and Mick D. Mantle.
The authors gave the following explanation of their cover image: ‘This hand-made drawing represents the essence of our article. There are fishes (reactant molecules) that swim under water (the solvent for the reaction), in marine caves (porous catalyst matrix) looking for pots of gold and platinum (the active components of the catalyst). A cave is accessible (the catalyst mesopores) despite the presence of obstacles (the deposits formed during the reaction) and the smiling fishes rush happily towards the precious metal pots! The other cave (the micropores of the catalyst) is much narrower and the path is blocked by the deposits. What a pity for the fishes, who are unable to access the precious metal pots, showing disappointed faces!’
The drawing was made in collaboration with Chen Xi, a Cambridge local artist whose other works can be seen at: http://chenxi.carbonmade.com/about
Homogeneous catalysis for the conversion of biomass and biomass-derived platform chemicals is the paper highlighted on the inside front cover by Peter J. Deuss, Katalin Barta* and Johannes G. de Vries.
Issue 5 contains a number of excellent Mini-review articles:
Role of microwaves in heterogeneous catalytic systems
Satoshi Horikoshi* and Nick Serpone
Solar photocatalysis for water disinfection: materials and reactor design
Donal A. Keane, Kevin G. McGuigan, Pilar Fernández Ibáñez, M. Inmaculada Polo-López, J. Anthony Byrne, Patrick S. M. Dunlop, Kevin O’Shea, Dionysios D. Dionysiou and Suresh C. Pillai
