Green Chemistry and Sustainable Engineering
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Chemical Engineering and Technology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 2272
Special Issue Editor
Interests: green chemistry; sustainable development; valorization of biomass; functional monomers and polymers; polymerization catalysis; organometallic complexes; mechanistic aspects of polymerization; biodegradation and polymer waste management
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Sustainable development is one of the most frequently used terms in current political and environmental debates. Going green is important not only to tap into the largest repressed portion of the planet's renewable resources, but also to address environmental and waste management issues of using fossil fuels. Indeed, most manufactured products still rely on cheaper but non-renewable fossil raw materials and involve multi-step processes with the release of huge amounts of waste and hazardous materials. The depletion of fossil resources is inevitable, in addition, its combustion releases greenhouse gases (e.g., CO2) which are not balanced by those removed through the photosynthesis during biomass production. To overcome the limited availability of petrochemicals, structural compounds of biomass feedstocks such as agricultural crops, forestry and wood processing residues, can be used as abundant and renewable resources to produce chemical building blocks. Nevertheless, renewable carbon should not be the only consideration while designing alternative materials. For instance, usage of excess solvents or reagents, multi-step reactions, low atom utilization, high temperature and time-consuming synthetic process have undeniable effects on the sustainability of a given process. So how do we meet the exponential demands of the market without damaging our planet, while also protecting the interests/rights of future generations?
In this context, this Special Issue, entitled "Green Chemistry and Sustainable Engineering", aims to bring together cutting-edge studies from academia and industry on the synthesis and design of new renewable compounds from biomass in the broadest sense, including small molecules, antioxidants, biologically relevant molecules, monomers, polymers, to name a few. In addition, since not all biobased products are truly sustainable, the design of greener approaches (e.g., use of green solvents, waste minimization, catalytic processes, lower energy, etc.) is included in this issue. In both cases, authors are strongly encouraged to assess their studies by calculating simple and easily accessible green metrics such as environmental factor (E factor).
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Use of renewable feedstocks (e.g., lignin, cellulose) for the production of platform molecules.
- Synthesis of sustainable (macro)molecules, polymers and renewable materials.
- Synthesis of green organic, organometallic and inorganic catalysts.
- Greener synthetic processes of environmentally benign products.
- Green solvents and their applications in chemistry.
- Mechanochemistry for molecular synthesis.
- Polymerization catalysis and greener catalytic methods.
- Enzymatic polymerization of renewable monomers.
- Microfluidic synthesis of biobased polymer microparticles.
- Waste minimization of the manufacturing processes.
- Polymer waste management (e.g., recycling and biodegradation).
I look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Sami Fadlallah
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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
- valorization of biomass
- platform chemicals
- efficient synthetic routes
- greener catalysis
- green solvents
- enzymatic catalysis
- mechanochemistry
- polymerization
- renewable polymers
- biomaterials
- sustainability metrics
- waste management
- recycling
