As celebrations for the fifth year of publishing for Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (OBC) continue, RSC Publishing staff have been reflecting on the activities and successes.

Launched in 2003, OBC was built on the foundations laid by its predecessors Perkin Transactions 1 and 2. The intention was to ensure a strong international presence in the organic community - which has already been fulfilled. Not only does OBC have a competitive impact factor of 2.874, it also boasts quicker publication times than any of its competitors.

'The achievements over the first five years have been tremendous,' commented OBC editor Vikki Allen, 'and with the continued help of our authors, referees and readers we anticipate a first-rate future!'

As part of the celebrations for five successful years of publishing, the journal has featured a series of 'Top 5 articles' from a variety of geographic areas, plus members of the Editorial Board have selected their favourite five articles published in the journal since launch.

Professor Benjamin List, the winner of the 2007 OBC Lecture Award, spoke about the challenges for chemists during his lecture on organocatalysis at the 20th International Symposium: Synthesis in Organic Chemistry in July. Whatever the future challenges across the broad organic spectrum of synthetic, physical and biomolecular chemistry, articles published in OBC are sure to be at the forefront.

Issue 30 of Journal of Materials Chemistry hosts a theme issue dedicated to New Energy Materials. Guest edited by Professor M. Saiful Islam (University of Bath, UK) and including contributions from a range of internationally acclaimed authors, the issue highlights some of the latest developments in energy conversion and storage technologies making it a must-have for all scientists interested in energy research.

With the fastest publication rates in the industry and a soaring impact factor of 4.287 (a staggering increase of 58% over the past 2 years), Journal of Materials Chemistry has a well deserved reputation for excellence in the field.

Materials chemistry will play a critical role in developing energy-related applications and therefore it is particularly timely to publish a focused set of articles covering this. The issue contains more than 20 articles on a range of topics, including; fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, solar cells and hydrogen storage, and additionally hosts several feature, application and highlight articles.

One of the major challenges for the twenty-first century is the development of cleaner, sustainable sources of energy. The chemical sciences will play a critical role in successfully overcoming such issues, and as such the RSC is devoted to addressing them and working toward a better, cleaner future.