Bhalchandra Bhanage obtained his doctorate from Pune University in 1996.  He spent more than one year at Tohoku University, Japan (1997-1998) and Hokkaido University, Japan between 2000 and 2003 as postdoctoral fellow with Prof. M. Arai. In 2004, he joined the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India as a professor of industrial and engineering chemistry. Among his current interests is catalysis using carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. He worked on developing novel catalysts for various coupling reactions, carbonylations, hydroformylations, aminations etc. He is also working on nanoparticle synthesis, enzymatic catalysis and use of non-conventional techniques like ultrasound and microwaves for various reactions. Masahiko Arai obtained his doctorate from Tohoku University at Sendai in 1979. He was at the Institute for Chemical Reaction Science, Tohoku University, from 1979 to 1999. He spent about one year at Leiden University, The Netherlands and Wisconsin University, USA, from 1986 to 1987. He has been at Hokkaido University since 2000 as a professor of chemical engineering. Among his current interests are the utilization of pressurized carbon dioxide as a reaction medium, promoter and reactant for organic synthetic reactions, the preparation and application of nitrogen-doped carbon materials as metal-free catalysts, multiphase organic reactions in the presence of carbon dioxide, water and supported metal catalysts and the catalysis of synthetic mesoporous smectite-like materials.