Dear Colleagues,

Polymeric foams have been gaining interest in emerging sectors that demand increasingly more efficient materials to fulfill complex technical requirements, including enhanced specific and functional properties as well as reduced energy consumption. Researchers have demonstrated in recent years the great versatility of polymer-based foams, both in terms of their developed cellular structures and microstructures as well as their final performances. In this sense, control of the microstructures and final properties is highly influenced by the constituent components, with the dispersion of functional (nano)particles throughout a polymer matrix emerging as a trending strategy. New foaming methods and technologies have also been developed in recent years, allowing the creation of novel foams with micro-, submicro-, or even nanocellular structures, extending their already vast array of applications and opening brand new possibilities, such as in tissue engineering, catalysis, or in high-temperature as well as high-performance insulating applications.

This Special Issue is the continuation of two published Special Issues, entitled “Polymeric Foams” and “Polymeric Foams II”, which, respectively, contain a total of 23 (plus an editorial letter) and 14 articles, all dealing with relevant aspects of the most recent research on polymer-based foams, including those that are thermoset-, thermoplastic-, and even elastomeric-based, focusing on their designs, compositions (including the development of fully biodegradable foams or the addition of functional (nano)particles), processing and fabrication (including different processing methods, such as the use of supercritical carbon dioxide or expanded bead technologies), microstructures (such as the development of microcellular foams), mechanical and functional properties, applications, service behaviors, or recycling and reuse. The large amount of interest, corroborated by the high number of publications in the first two Special Issues (Polymeric Foams and Polymeric Foams II), is a testament to the great deal of interest in these materials and fully justifies the expansion to a third Special Issue on this topic.

Manuscripts related to the following topics are of interest for this Special Issue:

• Thermoplastic-, thermoset-, and elastomeric-based foams;
• Syntactic foams;
• Biopolymer-based and biodegradable polymer foams;
• High-temperature and high-performance polymer foams;
• Composite and nanocomposite foams;
• Microcellular, submicrocellular, and nanocellular foams;
• Closed-cell, open-cell, and interconnected-cell foams;
• Unimodal and multimodal foams;
• Novel foaming methods and technologies;
• Polymer foams for 3D printing;
• Flame-retardant foams;
• Thermally and electrically conductive polymer foams;
• Polymer foams with enhanced thermal insulation;
• Polymer foams with enhanced specific mechanical properties;
• Modeling of polymeric foams;
• Recycling and reuse of polymer foams;
• New applications of foams, including in electronics, batteries, fuel cells, catalysis, separation and filtration, gas absorption, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, electrostatic discharge (ESD), electrostatic painting, tissue engineering, sandwich-like materials, etc.

Prof. Dr. José Ignacio Velasco
Dr. Marcelo Antunes
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• polymeric foams
• cellular composites
• microcellular foams
• nanocomposite foams
• functional foams
• new applications of foams