New Advances in Olefin Polymerization Catalysis

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to invite your contributions to a Special Issue of Catalysts dedicated to recent progress in olefin polymerization catalysis.

Polymers represent about 80% by weight of the global chemical industry throughput, and polyolefins amount to roughly 50% by weight of the overall polymer market. These amazing figures highlight, at the same time, an incredible success story and a dramatic threat for the environment due to the mounting stream of plastic wastes that continue to accumulate virtually everywhere.

The two phenomena, which can be viewed as opposite sides of the same coin, can be traced to marvelous coordination catalysts which effortlessly convert olefins into nondegradable plastics and can continue to do so until our entire planet is covered with them unless we identify an alternative.

Human societies need polyolefins, which have a better cost-to-performance balance and carbon footprint than all other presently available materials. On the other hand, we must find ways to make polyolefins compatible with a circular economy; for that, we need even better catalysts than those we have now, in order to produce polyolefin materials with an extended lifetime for nondisposable applications, and improved properties so the same performance can be achieved with less. On top of that, we should not abandon the ambition to depolymerize polyolefin chains through smart chemical designs or processes once their lifecycle has ended.

Improving something which is close to perfection is exceedingly difficult. As far as polyolefin catalysts are concerned, further innovation can come from novel high throughput experimentation tools and methods, opening the door to focused trial-and-error searches based on efficient statistical models with predictive ability. On the same streamline, the advent of machine learning, aided by artificial intelligence, can provide previously unimaginable opportunities to face chemical and physical problems of defying complexity.

This Special Issue aims to cover the latest progress and advances in the field of catalytic olefin polymerization in the aforementioned context. That includes but is not limited to the main families of catalysts (namely, Ziegler–Natta, metallocenes, nonmetallocenes) and activators, as well as the aspects related to reaction mechanisms, molecular kinetics, and polymerization process technology.

Dr. Antonio Vittoria
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. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.

• olefin polymerization catalyst
• Ziegler–Natta catalyst
• metallocene catalyst
• polyolefin
• high-throughput experimentation
• polymerization technology