Polymer‑Based Sensors for Civil and Environmental Engineering Applications
A Special Issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360) belonging to the section "Smart and Functional Polymers".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2027 | Viewed by 40
Editor
Interests: polymer sensor; IoT sensing system; civil engineering; soil–water interaction; finite element; geographical information system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Functional polymer‑based sensors are emerging as a transformative class of smart materials owing to their flexibility, lightweight nature, tunable electrical and mechanical properties and compatibility with multifunctional sensing systems. This Special Issue aims to report recent advances in the design, synthesis, characterization, modeling, fabrication and practical engineering‑oriented application of functional polymers and polymer composites targeted at civil and environmental engineering sensing scenarios. Contributions are particularly encouraged on conductive and conjugated polymers, polymer nanocomposites, hydrogels and elastomers, molecularly imprinted polymers, piezoresistive and piezoelectric materials, chemical and environmental sensors and self‑sensing composites. These themes closely integrate expertise in functional macromolecules, conductive composites, nanomaterials, flexible electronics and smart polymer systems.
Particular emphasis will be placed on translating polymer-sensing technologies toward practical civil and environmental engineering applications. In civil engineering, functional polymer sensors offer significant opportunities for structural health monitoring, including the real‑time measurement of strain, stress, cracking, deformation, vibration, moisture, temperature and environmental deterioration in buildings, bridges, pavements, tunnels, slopes, pipelines and other infrastructure. Recent studies demonstrate growing potential for polymer nanocomposite sensors and self‑sensing materials in concrete and structural monitoring. For environmental engineering, polymer‑based sensors show great promise for pollutant detection, water quality monitoring, soil condition assessment and onsite environmental hazard surveillance. This Special Issue will therefore provide an interdisciplinary platform connecting polymer science, sensor technology, materials engineering, data‑driven monitoring and smart, resilient civil and environmental infrastructure.
Dr. Alfrendo Satyanaga
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 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. Polymers 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 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.
Keywords
- polymer-based sensors
- structural health monitoring
- civil infrastructure monitoring
- environmental monitoring
- water and soil sensing
- pollutant detection
- self-sensing composites
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