Emission Control Science and Technology - Editorial by the Editors-in-Chief
“γῆ μὲν ὁπόση πόσους σώφρονας ὄντας ἱκανὴ τρέφειν, πλείονος δὲ οὐδὲν προσδεῖ”, Πλάτων, Νόμοι, 360 π.Χ.
“the land must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of inhabitants in a moderate way of life, more than this is not required” Plato, Laws, 360 B.C.
Our civilization’s reliance on combustion is aptly symbolized by the ancient Hellenic myth of the titan Prometheus who stole fire from Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods, and gave it to the mortals. In actual history, it was not so long ago that the presence of industrial smoke stacks was considered a sign of local prosperity and provided inspiration to artists such as Georgia O’ Keefe, whose idyllic painting “The East River from Shelton Hotels” painted in 1928, contains numerous smoke plumes!
Fire kept factories and engines running, producing jobs and wealth for the fortunate inhabitants of the industrial city. We have since then grown up, receiving as citizens of the modern city, our share of Prometheus’s punishment from Zeus: combustion is today invariably connected with escalating problems of atmospheric pollution, the threat of carbon emissions-induced climate change and the prospect of exhaustion of our energy reserves.
Despite much research effort directed towards a combustion-free future (based on alternatives to hydrocarbons fuels and sustainable technologies), we can safely assume that Prometheus’s punishment, will continue at least for a while. Simply stated, there appears no optimal, viable alternative to fossil fuel combustion to power our civilization for the larger part of the next 50 years.
The use of Combustion has triggered a wave of ever-tightening worldwide environmental regulations which in turn have indeed prompted international technology development and further research in various areas of emission control technologies. The coming decades will witness the introduction of new emission reduction technologies and combustion sources, new sensors, novel converters, multifunctional reactors and substrates, ‘smart’ low-temperature catalysts, smaller yet more sophisticated emission control systems, further system level optimizations, more demanding regulatory frameworks mandating lower emission and immision targets, hydrogen-based power sources, fuel cell vehicles, alternative and synthetic fuels and many more. One would then ask: Isn’t it time to give Emission Control publications a real place of their own? Until now, worthy emission control articles appeared in a variety of publications, frequently non-archival ones. This dissemination of information made it difficult for researchers in emission control to have and use a single outlet devoted entirely to their topic of research and interest. The present journal fills this need and is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted solely to Emission Control science and technology.
‘Emission Control Science and Technology’ is the single, authoritative outlet for all areas of emission control research, development and application related to mobile (automotive-land/air/sea transport) and stationary sources in the energy, chemical process and manufacturing industries where combustion technologies are employed.
We are both pleased and honored to work with the journal’s editorial board, which includes a strong, well-respected team of international researchers active in industry, universities, research labs and well-known research and engineering institutions, covering both regulatory and technology topics across the globe (See the Journal Scope for details).
We are excited and enthusiastic about the introduction of this journal. We look forward to this journal meeting an important need of the emission control community and growing to become the definitive vehicle for high quality international research in emission control science and technology.
Editors-In-Chief:
Athanasios G. Konstandopoulos
Mansour Masoudi