Progress in Physical Chemistry is a collection of recent "Review Articles" published in the "Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie". The second volume of Progress in Physical Chemistry is a collection of thematically closely related minireview articles written by the members of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 277 of the German Research Foundation (DFG). These articles are based on twelve years of intense coordinated research efforts. Central topics are the synthesis and the characterization of interface-dominated, i.e. nanostructured materials, mainly in the solid state but also as nanoparticles / nanorods in liquid dispersion (ferrofluids) or as gas / liquid in mesoporous host systems (thermodynamics in confinement).