Sustainable and Functional Materials: From Design to Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The urgent demand for sustainable solutions has intensified research on advanced materials that are both high-performing and environmentally responsible. Sustainable and functional materials have become central to addressing challenges in energy, environment, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. Designed with a focus on renewability, biodegradability, recyclability, and low ecological footprint, these materials also exhibit tunable properties that enable wide-ranging applications.

This Special Issue highlights recent progress across the innovation pathway—from conceptual design and molecular engineering to scalable processing, characterization, and practical deployment. Topics of interest include but are not limited to bio-based polymers, nanomaterials, hybrid composites, hydrogels, and covalent and metal–organic frameworks. Contributions exploring material–structure–property relationships, novel fabrication strategies, and application-oriented studies are particularly welcome.

By bringing together interdisciplinary research from chemistry, materials science, engineering, and environmental technology, this collection offers a platform for advancing both fundamental understanding and practical implementation. We anticipate that the contributions will not only deepen knowledge of sustainable and functional materials but also inspire innovative approaches for translating them into real-world applications, supporting the transition toward a more sustainable future.

Dr. Liu Liu
Dr. Zhongyu Yang
Guest Editors

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials 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 2600 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.