Chemists in Europe and the Americas describe several processes either in development or already in commercial use that highlight the characteristics of a chemical catalytic process based on renewable resources, and the steps needed to make it an ecologically viable and attractive process. They start from an intermediate chemical perspective, that is, through renewable products that are formed by biological or thermal conversion processes, like fermentation, pyrolysis, or selective combustion. The topics include the development of catalytic processes from terpenes to chemicals, furan-based building blocks from carbohydrates, fats and oils as raw materials for the chemical industry, biomass-to-liquids by the Fischer-Tropsch process, and carbon dioxide as a valuable source of carbon for chemical and fuels. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)