The European Congress on Catalysis takes place biannually in different European countries and has become the most prestigious scientific event in Europe in the field of Catalysis. Following the decision of the European Federation of Catalysis Societies (EFCATS), the XIIth European Congress on Catalysis ”Catalysis: Balancing the use of fossil and renewable resources” was held in Kazan, Russian Federation, on August 30–September 4 2015. The main topic of the Congress—finding the right balance between fossil and renewable resources in the near future—attracted great interest and gathered in Kazan 837 registered participants from 44 countries with 396 from Russia, 69 from Germany, 41 from Italy, 34 from Spain, 31 from China and from France. Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea, each contributed with 16 participants, while USA and Kazakhstan with 11 and 10, respectively. EFCATS council has been represented by 37 delegates. This Special Issue comprises selected papers presented at the “Energy-related Catalysis” Session, as well as “Photocatalysis: water splitting, CO2 reduction and oxidative processes” and “Fuel reforming” Symposia of Europacat XII and covers different areas of energy-related catalysis, namely:

  • Photocatalysis (papers 1–5).

  • Electrocatalysis (paper 6).

  • Catalytic steam reforming (papers 7–9).

  • CO/biomass valorization (papers 10–15).

  • The last two articles are devoted to the catalytic hydrogen production from sodium borohydride and ammonia (papers 16 and 17).

We would like to thank the Editors of Topics of Catalysis for the opportunity to publish this Special Issue and hope that the articles published therein will be of interest for the readers of this well recognized journal. We wish to acknowledge all the authors and the reviewers of the manuscripts who assured the quality of this Special Issue. We also thank the editorial team of Springer and the Europacat XII Organizing Committee for their support.