Preface

It is recognized that one of the most important frontiers in current chemical engineering is process intensification,while structured catalysts and reactors are among the most important process intensification technologies due to their unique advantages such as low pressure drop,high flux, good transfer performance and easy scale-up.Thus,this area has received significant attention recently from the community of chemical engineering, that motivates us to compile the special issue on structured catalysts and reactors.

The special issue covers various aspects of structured catalysts and reactors,including catalyst preparation and characterization,transport phenomena,mathematical modelling,and innovative applications.The contents span from molecular to industrial scales,trying to decipher the complex phenomena therein by means of experimental,theoretical and computational methods or their close integration.We are happy to see that more and more Chinese authors are active in this promising field.

In general,the main types of structured catalysts and reactors include monoliths,open cross-fl ow structures,foams,catalytic membranes,and microreactors.Among others,monolith structures have been widely applied in practice in environmental engineering,e.g.methane catalytic combustion,(selective catalytic reduction)SCR for NOxremoval,etc.However,in chemical engineering by far,monolith structures have only been applied for the H2O2production which takes place at mild conditions(at low temperature,low pressure and low flux).To suit for chemical reactions in industry under extreme conditions(at high temperature and high pressure),some key scientific issues should be resolved before monolith structures can be successfully extended to other chemical products.We believe that this special issue can provide some clues to resolution of the problems encountered in the application of monolith structures.

As a forumfor exchanging new technical ideas,the International Conference on Structured Catalysts and Reactors(ICOSCAR)was held once every four years at Delft(2001 and 2005),Ischia(2009),and Beijing(2013).Due to the rapid development in this exciting field,the future ICOSCAR series will be held once every three years,and the ICOSCAR-5 is planned in Spain in 2016.

The special issue contains 12 papers originally presented on ICOSCAR-4 organized by Beijing University of Chemical Technology.The guest editors thank all the contributing authors,as well as all participants who supported ICOSCAR-4.

Zhigang Lei

Biaohua Chen

Guest Editors

State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering,Beijing University of

Chemical Technology,Beijing 100029,China

E-mailaddresses:leizhg@mail.buct.edu.cn(Z.Lei),

chenbh@mail.buct.edu.cn(B.Chen).