This year both the 5^th workshop and the 100^th anniversary of VGB PowerTech take place. The workshop covers a wide range of work on further reduction of mercury emissions in power plants and waste-to-energy plants, which ex-tend from fundamental research to practical process engineering applications. Due to the complexity of mercury chemistry and the many-faceted chemical and process interactions with mercury this VGB-Workshop is always an ideal meeting place for direct exchange of experience, which we cannot offer this year as usual.