Preface: Applicative trends in nanoscience: Recent Patents on Nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology continues arousing extreme interest of scientists and engineers with a predictable socio-economic impact pointing to advanced industrial applications. See for instance the fact that products generated by nanotechnology are expected to grow from a global volume of €200 billion in 2009 to €2 trillion by 2015 according to the European Commission policy and its recommendations on nanotechnology. The number of publications in this topic in the last 5 years, i.e. in the 2009-2013 period, is around 800,000 articles and 20,000 patents according to the Thomson Reuters Web of Science and applying the search criterion proposed by M. Maghrebi et al. Nowadays, there is a considerable number of journals devoted to the diverse research aspects of nanoscience but there are no so widely available publication sources entirely devoted to collecting works on nanotechnology patents. Recent Patents on Nanotechnology from Bentham Publishing is nowadays a well consolidated journal that provides detailed information of nanotechnology related to key applications in fields as diverse as biomedicine, energy, agriculture, transportation, communications, and industry in general. Trending topics dealing with preparation and application of nanomaterials including nanoparticles and nanostructured systems, for instance in lithium batteries, low temperature fuel cells, catalysis, drug delivery, biological sensing or nanofluids have been addressed in the last volume of the journal. On this last topic, Dr. Haisheng Chen (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Dr. Sanjeeva Witharana (Max Planck Institute) act as Guest Editors of a Themed Issue in which is evidenced the relevance of stable suspensions of nanoparticles in common heat transfer liquids. The issue includes six review papers covering aspects from boiling heat transfer and thermal conductivity to formulation techniques, rheological aspects and applications in water treatment of nanofluids. We would like to thank the Editorial Office of Bentham Science Publishers and particularly to Ms. Humera Sharif, Ms. Annie Syed and Ms. Sadia Haris for their helpful assistance publishing Recent Patents on Nanotechnology, the top journal devoted to the innovation in the nanotechnology field.