6th San Luis Conference on Surfaces, Interfaces and Catalysis

The present Issue of Topics in Catalysis contains selected contributions from participants of the 6th San Luis Conference and School on Surfaces, Interfaces and Catalysis, which took place in Santa Fe, Argentina, from June 2nd to June 8th, 2018. This was the sixth in a series of meetings aiming to unite Latin American, US and European scientists in the areas of surface chemistry, with particular emphasis on heterogeneous catalysis. A Humboldt Kolleg took place before the Conference and as part of the School. The event was organized by J. Anibal Boscoboinik (CFN, BNL, USA), Florencia C. Calaza (INTEC, CONICET-UNL, Argentina) and Octavio J. Furlong (INFAP, CONICET-UNSL, Argentina), together with Sebastian E. Collins (INTEC, CONICET-UNL, Argentina) acting as main coordinator of all organization activities in the city of Santa Fe. The San Luis conference series started in 1994, as a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of San Luis city (Argentina). At that moment, Professors Francisco Zaera (UCR, Riverside, CA), Eddy Tysoe (UWM, Milwaukee, WI) and Giorgio Zgrablich (UNSL, San Luis) organized the first meeting, financed primarily by the San Luis Province, with additional funds from the Argentine National Government. This event brought together theorists and experimentalists from the area of surface science, mostly related to catalysis, with the main purpose of exposing Argentine students to leading international scientists from the Americas and Europe. Its outcome greatly exceeded the organizers expectations, resulting in several new collaborative projects between Argentine universities and foreign institutions. A special issue including work presented in the conference was published in the journal Langmuir. By the second and third San Luis Symposiums, the former held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 2000, and the latter in Merida, Venezuela, in 2004, both funded primarily by US National Science Foundation (NSF), a Summer School on Surface Science was implemented. Fellowships were given to a few US graduate students with the intention of fostering collaborations with people early in their professional careers. There was a substantial increase in international participation, with people attending from the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan. New collaborations were established, and the proceedings were published in The Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical in both instances. A Fourth San Luis Summer School and Symposium on Surfaces, Interfaces and Catalysis was held in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 2007, with 120 attendees (compared to around 70 attendees in previous meetings) from 15 countries, with a total of 39 oral presentations and 93 posters, presented in three separate sessions. The proceedings were again published in a special issue of The Journal of Molecular Catalysis: Chemical. At this point, and given the increasing success of these meetings, the main organizers and original founders of the San Luis Symposium decided to continue the series as a periodic event with locations that will rotate among the different Latin American countries. With that in mind, the fifth chapter was held in São Pedro, Brazil, in 2010. This conference was financed primarily by US-NSF under their PASI program, but additional funding was secured from the Universidade Federale de São Carlos, and from private companies. Once again, the meeting proved to be highly successful in terms of number of attendees, participation, quality of presentations and new collaborations being fostered. A selection of works presented at the Conference was published in the journal Topics in Catalysis. After the sad passing of Prof. Giorgio Zgrablich in 2012, the San Luis Conference remained dormant for some years, until a group of young researchers that had attended previous instances and whose careers had benefitted form these * Florencia C. Calaza