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Editorial on the Research Topic: Chemical reactions and catalysis for a sustainable future, Developing catalytic chemical processes for a sustainable future is a constant challenge involving different knowledge áreas (Sakakura et al., 2007; Yang et al., 2013; Götz et al., 2016; Tian et al., 2023; Yu et al., 2023). It requires multidisciplinary actions that include economic sectors, industry, society, and the environment (Lee et al., 2006; Corma et al., 2007; Naik et al., 2010; Ferreira Mota et al., 2022; Tafete and Habtu, 2023). Furthermore, catalytic chemical processes require constant evaluation to achieve greater sustainability, mainly when applied in industries or on a domestic scale (Chheda et al., 2007; Khodakov et al., 2007; Oh et al., 2016; Deng et al., 2023). Indeed, chemical catalysis is inherent in developing a sustainable future (Kondratenko et al., 2013; Deng et al., 2023). Chemical reactions are inseparable from our subject since they are applied in different processes, such as the preparation of fuels, food, drugs, and energy (Arcadi, 2008; Lima et al., 2022; Moreira et al., 2022; Sales et al., 2022; de Sousa et al., 2023; Faizan and Song, 2023; Nogueira et al., 2023). In this context, we include scientific research to help make these processes more sustainable. Moreover, consequently, it reduce the negative impact on the environment (Wang et al., 2023a; Zhu et al., 2023). Regarding chemical catalysis, reducing the amount of energy involved in the processes is fundamental (Roy et al., 2010; Yang et al., 2023a; Nogueira et al., 2023). This has a positive impact on reducing the use of polluting energy sources so that these systems can happen, such as the use of petroleum-derived fuels (Torborg and Beller, 2009; Catumba et al., 2023; Jafarian et al., 2023; Park and Kim, 2023). Furthermore, the greater need to use high temperature and pressure conditions increases energy consumption and, consequently, the production of waste that pollutes the environment (Singh et al., 2018; Djandja et al., 2023). Thus, chemical catalysis must seek to reduce the energy required for these processes, for example, in the design of robust catalysts (Yang et al., 2023b); The design of robust catalysts for industrial applications can be presented in different physical states, such as solid, liquid, or gaseous (Mariscal et al., 2016; Ferreira Mota et al., 2022; Issaka et al., 2023). The principle of sustainable functioning of these catalysts must include the formation of desired products (Centi et al., 2013). Be highly efficient in guiding molecules of reagents to the formation of desired products and eliminating the generation of unwanted waste (Li et al., 2023a; Li et al., 2023b). Another crucial factor for the design of sustainable catalysts must include their stabilization power, that is, whether the catalyst can be used repeatedly in the same reused process, minimizing the formation of polluting species and being economically viable (Centi et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2023b). In this way, the formation of sustainable reaction processes is the realization of catalytic systems on a large scale (Abbas-Abadi et al., 2023; Abuzeyad et al., 2023). This strategy makes it possible to reduce energy and polluting waste generated in the environment (Zhao et al., 2023). This fact also implies a decrease in energy use from oil and contributes to green chemistry practices (Goyal et al., 2008; Akram et al., 2023). Therefore, catalysis is different in advancing clean, renewable, and consequently sustainable technologies (Waseem et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2023). In this context, catalysis is fundamental in producing fuel cells, which convert chemical energy into electrical energy in an environmentally sustainable way (Zhao et al., 2015; Gong et al., 2023). Likewise, catalysis is fundamental in producing biofuels from renewable sources such as biomass (Li et al., 2023c; Jiang et al., 2023; Yu et al., 2023).

Photophysical and photochemical investigation of photoinduced electron transfer (PET)-based acridinedione dye (ADR1) with urea in the presence of a nitrogenous base (adenine) were carried out in water. Urea suppresses the PET resulting in a fluorescence enhancement and the extent of binding is correlated and governed by the number of urea molecules surrounding the close vicinity of dye. On the contrary, adenine forms a true 1:2 complex with dye. Presence of adenine in dye-urea microenvironment results in the displacement of dye from the vicinity of urea molecules. The stability of dye-urea network in the presence of adenine reveals that the microenvironment of dye is governed and influenced by both urea and adenine. Introduction of adenine to dye-urea results in the formation of several hydrogen bonding assemblies that are competitive and influences the excited state characteristics of ADR1 dye. The micro assemblies comprise dye-urea (DU), dye-adenine (DA), urea-adenine (UA), urea-water (UW), urea-urea (UU), and adenine-water (AW) framework and the existence of several competitive hydrogen bonding results in a large variation in fluorescence properties of ADR1 dye. The presence of several assemblies also signifies that no confined phase selectively of DU or DA assemblies exist in any stoichiometric proportion in the aqueous phase. The binding constant, the variation in the fluorescence lifetime and its relative amplitude of DA in the presence of urea authenticate that the binding nature of dye-urea-adenine (DUA) is dependent on the several hydrogen bonding assemblies that coexist at any concentration. The extent of hydrogen bonding of DA is found to be entirely different from that of urea. Further, urea resulted in changes in the transient absorption peak of dye with a large variation in lifetime and shift of the transient absorption peaks. Fluorescence spectral techniques are used as an efficient tool in elucidating the binding nature of DU framework in the presence of non-fluorescent hydrogen-bonding solute like adenine.