Natural Fiber (Cellulose, Chitin)-Based Bioplastic Composites and Their Emerging Applications
A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomacromolecules, Biobased and Biodegradable Polymers".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2024 | Viewed by 1114
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
To address the serious problem of environmental pollution around the world, bioplastics have been proposed as a solution. First, the use of biodegradable polymer is expected to reduce the growing amount of accumulated plastics waste. High-performance bioplastics are also suggested to replace petroleum-based plastics that are not biodegradable but are made from environmental hormones such as bisphenol A. However, bioplastics still have limitations compared to petroleum-based plastics. In particular, bioplastics have poor mechanical properties compared with petroleum-based plastics, which makes their commercialization difficult.
However, it is environmentally undesirable to introduce non-biodegradable inorganic and carbon particles as fillers to enhance the mechanical properties of bioplastics. On the other hand, nanocellulose and nanochitin have great advantages as dispersed phases in bioplastic composites. These nanofibers are derived from natural products, which is in line with the sustainability values of bioplastics. In addition, since they are organic in nature, they have a small difference in surface energy compared to polymeric substrates and can be chemically modified to increase their miscibility with various polymeric substrates. Therefore, nanocellulose or nanochitin are suitable not only for biodegradable polymers, but also as dispersed phases to reinforce biobased polymeric materials for engineering plastics. In this Special Issue, we will discuss nanocellulose and nanochitin materials, which are attracting attention as eco-friendly dispersion phases for natural fiber-based polymer nanocomposites, and nanocomposites, coating films, polymer blends, and filters, membranes, battery matrices, and engineering plastics using them.
Prof. Dr. Sung Yeon Hwang
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- biodegradable polymer
- biobased polymer
- cellulose nanofiber
- chitin nanofiber
- natural fiber based nanocomposites
- biodegradable filter
- high-barrier cellulose film
- cellulose-based battery separators
