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Sustainability
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Sustainable Advanced and Smart Polymer Materials
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Sustainable Advanced and Smart Polymer Materials

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2022) | Viewed by 6918

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Veerle Vandeginste

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven–Bruges, 8200 Bruges, Belgium
Interests: sustainability; functional materials; polymers; physical chemistry of material interfaces; energy conversion and storage
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advanced materials have properties and functionalities that are either improved or new in comparison to traditional materials, which result in superior performance, which is critical for application. Smart materials are a subset of advanced materials that exhibit dynamic properties in response to external stimuli. The evolution of materials development needs to keep pace with the incredibly fast technological evolution, and the development of high-performance functional nanomaterials plays an important enabling and supporting role in this.

Notwithstanding the excellent opportunities offered by advanced and smart polymer materials, the sustainability and circularity of materials have become critical considerations in the development of new materials. We are facing challenges in fabricating materials with improved or new functionalities that simultaneously adopt renewable raw materials and circular-by-design concepts.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present the latest developments in this emerging field of dual-objective polymer materials with advanced and sustainable properties. This issue will collect contributions on such materials in a variety of application fields:

- Sustainable smart textile materials;

- Advanced polymer materials for sustainable energy applications;

- Sustainable advanced materials for smart buildings;

- Biodegradable packaging materials with smart functionalities;

- Advanced polymer materials for sustainable agriculture;

- Sustainable advanced materials in the transport sector.

Prof. Dr. Veerle Vandeginste
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

  • renewable
  • smart
  • recycling
  • batteries
  • coatings
  • hydrogel
  • biobased
  • nanocomposite

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2772 KiB  
Article
The Optimization of Gelatin Extraction from Chicken Feet and the Development of Gelatin Based Active Packaging for the Shelf-Life Extension of Fresh Grapes
by Saeeda Fatima, Mahnoor Iqtidar Mir, Muhammad Rehan Khan, R. Z. Sayyed, Samina Mehnaz, Sawaid Abbas, Muhammad Bilal Sadiq and Rashid Masih
Sustainability 2022, 14(13), 7881; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14137881 - 28 Jun 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3480
Abstract
Synthetic plastics are causing serious environmental and health problems due to which the concept of developing biodegradable food packaging has gained considerable attention. In this study, extraction of gelatin from chicken feet was optimized followed by characterization of gelatin. Chicken feet gelatin was [...] Read more.
Synthetic plastics are causing serious environmental and health problems due to which the concept of developing biodegradable food packaging has gained considerable attention. In this study, extraction of gelatin from chicken feet was optimized followed by characterization of gelatin. Chicken feet gelatin was used to develop biodegradable nanocomposite films by the incorporation of chitosan (CS) and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs). Gelatin nanocomposite films were used to increase the shelf-life of fresh grapes by determining the browning index, weight loss, and microbial profile of fresh grapes. A high yield (7.5%) of gelatin and Bloom strength (186 g) were obtained at optimized extraction conditions (pretreatment with 4.2% acetic acid and extraction at 66 °C for 4.2 h). Electrophoretic analysis of gelatin revealed the presence of α (130–140 kDa) and β chains (195–200 kDa), whereas a Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectrometer confirmed the presence of amide A and B and amide I, II, and III. Incorporation of ZnO NPs in a gelatin–CS matrix improved the barrier and the mechanical and the thermal properties of films. Gelatin nanocomposite films with 0.3% ZnO NPs significantly reduced the weight loss (23.88%) and the browning index (53.33%) of grapes in comparison to control treatments. The microbial count in artificially inoculated grapes wrapped in gelatin nanocomposite films remained below 4 log CFU/mL until the fifth storage day in comparison to control treatments. The gelatin from poultry byproducts such as chicken feet can serve as an efficient biopolymer to develop biodegradable food packaging to enhance the shelf-life of perishable food products. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Advanced and Smart Polymer Materials)
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11 pages, 2075 KiB  
Article
Synthesis of Green Deep Eutectic Solvents for Pretreatment Wheat Straw: Enhance the Solubility of Typical Lignocellulose
by Zedong Teng, Liyan Wang, Bingqian Huang, Yue Yu, Jianwei Liu and Tinggang Li
Sustainability 2022, 14(2), 657; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14020657 - 07 Jan 2022
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2719
Abstract
Deep eutectic solvents (DESs), a novel and environmentally-friendly solvent, have high potential for biomass pretreatment due to its advantages of low cost, low toxicity, strong solubility, excellent selectivity and biocompatibility. Two types of DES (binary and ternary) were synthesized and characterized, and optimized [...] Read more.
Deep eutectic solvents (DESs), a novel and environmentally-friendly solvent, have high potential for biomass pretreatment due to its advantages of low cost, low toxicity, strong solubility, excellent selectivity and biocompatibility. Two types of DES (binary and ternary) were synthesized and characterized, and optimized ternary DES was selected to pretreat wheat straw for enhancement of the solubility of lignocellulose. Moreover, enzymatic hydrolysis was tested to verify the performance of pretreatment. In addition, the changes in surface morphology, structure and crystallinity of wheat straw pretreated by DES were analyzed to reveal the pretreatment mechanism. Experimental results indicated that viscosity exhibited little difference in different types of DESs, and a declining trend as the temperature increases in same DES. The ternary DES pretreatment efficiently enhanced the solubility of typical lignocellulose, with the optimal removal rate of lignin at approximately 69.46%. Furthermore, the total sugar concentration of the residue was about 5.1 times more than that of untreated wheat straw after the pretreated samples were hydrolyzed by the cellulase for 24 h, indicating that DES has the unique ability to selectively extract lignin and hemicellulose from wheat straw while retaining cellulose, and thus enhanced the solubility of lignocellulose. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation and X-ray diffraction (XRD) determination showed that the surface of wheat straw suffered from serious erosion and the crystallinity index of wheat straw increased after DES5 pretreatment. Therefore, DES cleaves the covalent bond between lignin and cellulose and hemicellulose, and reduces the intractability of lignin resulting in the lignin dissolution. It suggests that DES can be used as a promising and biocompatible pretreatment way for the cost-effective conversion of lignocellulose biomass into biofuels. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Advanced and Smart Polymer Materials)
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