Dear Colleagues,

This is a call for papers contributing to the topic “Mechanics of Sustainable Polymeric Materials”. Sustainable polymers from renewable natural resources are environmentally friendly replacements for petroleum-derived polymers. In the 21^st century, there has been a rapidly growing research interest in inventing sustainable polymeric materials to combat the detrimental effects of the traditional petroleum-derived polymers on the natural environment since the middle of the 20^th century. As the foundation of the proper function of sustainable polymeric materials, mechanical properties are critical to making sustainable polymeric materials comparable to their high-performance petroleum-derived counterparts. The mechanical properties also play a role in both the pre-use processing and the post-use recycling of sustainable polymers, as controlling the energy dissipation in a mechanical process is highly relevant to the reduction in “carbon footprint”.

The design of the mechanics of sustainable polymeric materials requires concerted efforts targeting multiple length scales, including the manipulation of interaction and structure at the atomistic level, the control of polymer architecture and topology at the molecular level, and the arrangement of various components and domains at the macroscopic level. A combination of chemistry tools, characterization techniques, mechanical tests, computer simulation, numerical modeling, and theoretical framework for the mechanics of petroleum-derived polymers is needed to reveal the interaction–structure–property relationship and design principles for the mechanics of sustainable polymers.

The topic “Mechanics of Sustainable Polymeric Materials” seeks high-quality research focusing on the latest scientific advances and technological developments regarding the mechanical properties of sustainable polymeric materials derived from natural polymers including but not limited to cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and polysaccharide. The goal is to inspire interdisciplinary and scale-bridging studies of sustainable polymer mechanics.

Relevant themes include but are not limited to the following:

• Chemistry modification and transformation of natural polymers for mechanics design;
• Structural characterization of natural polymers in mechanical processes;
• Engineering of polymer architecture, topology, and interface for the optimization of sustainable polymer mechanics;
• Mechanical tests of sustainable polymeric materials at various conditions corresponding to pre-use processing, repeated use, post-use recycling and other stages of the material life cycle;
• Design composite materials incorporating sustainable polymers;
• Computational research including quantum chemistry calculation, atomistic and coarse-grained molecular simulations based on classical force fields, and continuum mechanics modeling;
• Application of traditional theories for synthetic polymer mechanics in the context of sustainable polymers.

Prof. Dr. Ge Ting
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.

• sustainable polymeric materials
• sustainable polymer chemistry
• nano-mechanics
• polymer science and engineering
• computaitonal and theorical polymer mechanics