With the increasing demand for optimization of energy storage, maintenance of the environment, and effective production, control on nanostructures of catalysts and optimization of their organization have become key to achieving high efficiency and specificity in energy and material conversion systems. This book emphasizes and summarizes the novel design of soft matters (molecules, polymers, assembled motifs, etc.) for nanocatalysts and nanocatalyst supports. The diversity or specialty of soft matters offers a new perspective and great promise for the development of new nanocatalytic systems for future requirements. Soft matters can provide a simple and well-defined space for the discovery of new catalysts.

This book covers nonmetallic organocatalysts, organometallic compounds, dendrimers, ionic liquids, enzymes, polymers, various organized nanoarchitectures for supporting catalysts, and molecular dynamics in catalytic surface reactions. It gives readers a complete picture of the catalysis systems based on soft matters and is a useful reference for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level students and researchers in chemistry, biology, materials science, nanoscience, polymer science, and catalysis.

Qingmin Ji is Full Professor at Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NJUST). She majored in chemistry and graduated from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 2005. She worked at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan before joining NJUST. Prof. Ji's research focuses on the design of hybrid functional structures by self-assembly and their advanced applications such as sensors, catalysts, and biological applications. She has published more than 70 papers in journals of materials and chemistry, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, and Advanced Materials.

Harald Fuchs is a Professor of experimental physics at the University of Münster, German; founder and scientific director of the Center of Nanotechnology (CeNTech) in Münster; and director of the Herbert Gleiter Institute at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on nanoscale science and nanotechnology, ranging from scanning probe microscopy to self-organized nanostructure fabrication, and nano-biosystems. He has published more than 450 scientific articles in various journals as an author or co-author. He was awarded the Philip Morris Research Prize Challenge Future in 1994 and the Münsterland Innovation Prize in 2001. Prof. Fuchs is an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He holds two guest professorships in China. He is a cofounder of several nanotechnology companies and a member of the editorial boards in several international journals. In 2015, he received an Honorary Professorship at the Nanjing-Tech-University, China.