to the Fundamental and Applied Catalysis Series Catalysis is important academically and industrially. It plays an essential role in the manufacture of a wide range of products, from gasoline and plastics to fertilizers and herbicides, which would otherwise be unobtainable or prohibitively expensive. There are few chemical-or oil-based material items in modem society that do not depend in some way on a catalytic stage in their manufacture. Apart from manu- facturing processes, catalysis is finding other important and ever-increasing uses; for example, successful applications of catalysis in...