Three years ago, in January 2017, I began as the Editor-in-Chief of this journal together with Professors Sofia Calero Joeri Denayer, Akihiko Matsumoto, and Arvind Rajendran as the area editors. We took some time to settle in our roles, but once we overcame the initial high barrier we launched new initiatives to take the journal forward. We have introduced invited review articles and the first article in this category appeared in the November issue of 2019 (Medical oxygen concentrators: a review of progress in air separation technology, Ackley, M. W. Adsorption (2019) 25:1437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-019-00155-w). The second review article appears in the current issue (Recent advances in development of amine functionalized adsorbents for CO2 capture, Gelles, T., Lawson, S., Rownaghi, A. A. et al. Adsorption (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-019-00151-0). Several other invited review articles are already in the pipeline and they will appear in the future issues when ready. We have maintained a good balance of authors from industry and academia contributing these review articles. Several thematic issues have also been planned for the coming years. The themes currently open for manuscript submission are Adsorption in Drug Delivery (guest edited by Professor David Fairen-Jimenez at Cambridge University) and Adsorbents and Adsorption Processes for Carbon Capture Utilization and Sequestration (edited by Professor Arvind Rajendran with guest editor Dr Carlos Grande at SINTEF, Norway). Another theme, Diffusion in Nanoporous Solids, guest edited by Professor Jörg Kärger at Universität Leipzig, is also in progress where submission is only by invitation.

With < 5 years to my retirement from my current academic position, I began to realize that I should reprioritize my options in order to make room for one or two things I would really want to do before my retirement. Hence I have decided to step down from the position of the Editor-in-Chief of this journal after 3 years. I have chosen the time when our new initiatives are beginning to materialize, which will give the new Editor-in-Chief enough breathing space to settle in his new position.

After an open international search process, instituted for the first time in nearly 25 years’ history of the Adsorption journal (indeed this journal turns 25 in March 2020), the Executive Committee of the International Adsorption Society has appointed Professor Stefano Brandani of University of Edinburgh as the fourth Editor-in-Chief of the Adsorption journal. Professor Stefano Brandani needs no introduction to the adsorption community. A scholar of high caliber, Professor Stefano Brandani has not only made significant contributions spanning the full spectrum of adsorption fundamentals to processes, he has also held important leadership positions in the community of adsorption scientists and engineers. I wish him continued success in this new position.

Serving as the Editor-in-Chief of this journal has been an honour, and a challenging but amply rewarding experience for me. I express my deepest gratitude to the four area editors for their dedicated service and unconditional support in this collective journey. I thank each person of the editorial staff at Springer I had the opportunity to work with for their professionalism and cooperation.

May I also take this opportunity to wish our readers a happy and prosperous 2020!.