Abstract

The breadth of scientific and technological interests in the general topic of photochemistry is truly enormous and includes, for example, such diverse areas as microelectronics, atmospheric chemistry, organic synthesis, non-conventional photoimaging, photosynthesis, solar energy conversion, polymer technologies, and spectroscopy. This Specialist Periodical Report on Photochemistry aims to provide an annual review of photo-induced processes that have relevance to the above wide-ranging academic and commercial disciplines, and interests in chemistry, physics, biology and technology. In order to provide easy access to this vast and varied literature, each volume of Photochemistry comprises sections concerned with photophysical processes in condensed phases, organic aspects which are sub-divided by chromophore type, polymer photochemistry, and photochemical aspects of solar energy conversion. Volume 37 covers literature published from July 2004 to June 2007. Specialist Periodical Reports provide systematic and detailed review coverage in major areas of chemical research. Compiled by teams of leading authorities in the relevant subject areas, the series creates a unique service for the active research chemist, with regular, in-depth accounts of progress in particular fields of chemistry. Subject coverage within different volumes of a given title is similar and publication is on an annual or biennial basis.
Angelo Albini is currently Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Pavia, Italy. A native of Milan, he completed his studies in Chemistry at Pavia in 1972. After postdoctoral work at the Max-Plank Institute for Radiation Chemistry in Muelheim, Germany (1973-74), he joined the Faculty at Pavia in 1975 as an assistant and then associate (since 1981) professor. He accepted a Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Torino in 1990 and then moved again to Pavia in 1993. He has been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Western Ontario (Canada, 1977-78) and Odense (Denmark, 1983). He is active in the field of organic photochemistry, organic synthesis via radical and ions, photoinitiated reactions, mild synthetic procedure in the frame of the increasing interest for substainable/green chemistry, applied photochemistry (photostability of dyes, drugs, photoinduced degradation of pollutants. He has been responsible of several research projects sponsored by national and international institutions and devoted to the above topics and coordinates the æGreen ChemistryÆ group of the Italian Chemical Society. He is coauthor/editor of three books (Heterocyclic N-Oxides, CRC, Orlando, 1990, Drugs: Photochemistry and Photostability, RSC, Cambridge, 1998, and Handbook of Preparative Photochemistry, Wiley-VCH, 2009), the senior reporter of the Specialist Periodic Reports on Photochemistry (RSC) since 2008, as well as coauthor ca. 280 research articles. He has been the recipient of the Federchimica Prize for creativity in chemistry in 1990.