Acknowledgements

George Kraus, series editor for the Green Chemistry Series at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), suggested the idea for this book to RCB early in 2015. After convincing KW, who had recently accepted a new job at RTI International, to serve as co-editor, we started in earnest to line up a distinguished group of pyrolysis researchers to contribute chapters on topics that would synthesize recent progress in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of fast pyrolysis. We were fortunate in convincing Jacques Lédé, Joon Weon Choi, Xianglan Bai, David Dayton, Shurong Wang, Kwang Ho Kim, Anja Oasmaa, Dietrich Meier, Wolter Prins, Stuart Daw and Tristan Brown to accept our invitations to assume leadership roles in preparing chapters along with their multiple co-authors.

We appreciate the patient assistance of Lindsay McGregor at the RSC in preparing the book proposal and getting it approved within the RSC, and Catriona Clarke’s help in assembling the chapters and checking on copyright permissions, resolution of figures, and the other myriad details that escape the notice of amateur book editors like ourselves.

RCB would like to acknowledge the staff at Iowa State University’s Bioeconomy Institute, especially its deputy directors, Ryan Smith and Jill Euken, who took on additional responsibilities as RCB juggled editing deadlines. He also appreciates the love and patience of his wife Carolyn. KW would like to thank David Dayton and Raghubir Gupta at RTI International for allowing him to take on the role of co-editor in addition to his regular duties at RTI. KW would like to especially thank his wife Guanqun and their soon-to-be-born son Xiaomai for allowing KW to spend many weekends and evenings editing chapters. We hope the knowledge and ideas contributed by the several authors of this book contribute toward a cleaner and brighter future for the next generation.

Robert C. Brown, Iowa State University

Kaige Wang, RTI International