Today’s society is facing significant challenges from the depletion of oil reserves and the increase of CO₂ emissions. Biorefinery may provide a possible solution to this dilemma as it opens a new way to the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals from vast but nonfood renewable biomass. Catalysis is expected to be a chief player in pursuit of new biorefinery technologies, just as it has been in the oil-refinery industry.

In order to provide an ideal forum to present and discuss the state-of-the-art of the catalytic technologies in biomass processing, the International Congress on Catalysis for Biorefineries (CatBior) was initiated in 2011 in Spain. The congress alternates worldwide in odd years. The 2nd International Congress on Catalysis for Biorefineries (CatBior 2013) was held in Dalian, China from 22 to 25 September 2013.

The CatBior 2013 covers main research topics in the catalysis for biorefinery, e.g., catalytic transformation of lignocellulose and its derived platform chemicals, catalytic transformation of plant oil, fats, algae and oleo-derived chemicals, and the catalytic upgrading technologies for bio-oil. More than 300 participants coming from 20 countries attended the CatBior 2013, where 6 plenary lectures, 9 keynotes, 41 oral communications and 133 posters were presented. A selected number of these 189 contributions were invited to submit a full manuscript in order to prepare two special issues: the special issue of Catalysis Today and the special issue of Chinese Journal of Catalysis. After a peer review process, 38 papers were finally accepted for publication in the special issue of Catalysis Today, and 20 papers were accepted for publication in the special issue of Chinese Journal of Catalysis.

This special issue of Chinese Journal of Catalysis contains one review and 19 research articles that cover the most important aspects of catalysis in biomass, such as production of bioethanol and biodiesel, transformation of lignocellulose to fuels and chemicals, as well as chemistry of biomass-based platform molecules. We hope that the readers of this special issue will find the contributions to the CatBior 2013 both exciting and productive.

We would like to express our gratitude especially to the referees for their thoughtful evaluation of papers as well as to the authors for their timely contributions. We also wish to thank the Editorial Staff of the journal for their help in preparing this special issue.

Tao Zhang (Guest Editor) Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian 116023, China

Avelino Corma (Guest Editor) Universidad Politécnica de Valencia 46022 Valencia, Spain

Ferdi Schüth (Guest Editor) Department of Heterogeneous Catalysis Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz 1, 45470 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany