The 74th Congress of Chemists (74th Annual Congress of the Czech and Slovak Chemical Societies), held on 4–7 September 2022 in Olomouc, Czech Republic, attracted more than 300 participants who presented and discussed a wide range of topics and achievements of chemical research not only in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The symposium was organized in honor of Prof. Vilím Šimánek, former President of the Czech Chemical Society, who celebrated his 80th birthday in October 2022. This outstanding scientist and great man, unfortunately, passed away in February 2023. As a part of the opening of the conference, an award ceremony took place. We can mention, for example, the award of Prof. Radek Cibulka and Dr. Ivana Císařová as European Chemistry Fellows. The program of this symposium included 6 invited lectures, more than 120 oral presentations, and about 80 posters presented in 12 scientific sessions.

We believe that the conference was a great platform to meet people from different fields of chemical research and to discuss many actual topics and issues. It was also an opportunity to acknowledge the work of students and young scientists. Here, we would like to thank all the participants, including the commercial partners, especially the general partner, Metrohm Czech Republic, for their support of this event.

In this issue of Monatshefte für Chemie—Chemical Monthly, three contributions related to the 74th Congress of Chemists are published. At the congress, they were presented mainly by young participants either in the form of a lecture or a poster. The published contributions aim to cover a cross section of various fields of chemistry and to ensure a thorough exchange and dissemination of scientific information, knowledge, and experience among the broad community of chemists. From this point of view, we believe that these contributions will be of special interest for the readers of this interdisciplinary chemistry journal.

We would like to express our thanks to the Editor-in-Chief of Monatshefte für Chemie—Chemical Monthly, Prof. Peter Gärtner, and the Managing Editor, Dr. Christian Hametner, for their kind support and finally, we sincerely thank all the authors for their contributions, the reviewers for their valuable comments, the editorial staff, and all other people who contributed.


Enjoy reading!


Jan Petr, Jana Skopalová, Tomáš Navrátil