Depolymerization: Challenges and Future Trends
A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 173
Special Issue Editor
Interests: sustainable recycling; depolymerization; plastics; upcycling; process optimization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
With the aim of enhancing the degradability and balancing the performance of polymers, depolymerization has become a vital recycling approach, enabling waste plastics to be converted back into virgin-quality monomers. This Special Issue, ‘Depolymerization: Challenges and Future Trends’, intends to explore emerging trends and innovations in depolymerization, covering the methods used, opportunities, and challenges. For depolymerization to support sustainable development and integrate effectively across its various application fields, it necessitates a blend of technological, social, financial and political factors. Further research into reducing the costs, energy demands, and environmental footprint of these processes is essential for achieving circularity of polymer and embedding depolymerization within the core principles of sustainable development.
Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Advances in enzyme engineering for depolymerization of plastics.
- Green catalysts and solvents (ionic liquids/deep eutectic solvents) in chemical depolymerization.
- Mechanochemistry: Solvent-free polymer breakdown using ultrasound/ball milling, reactive extrusion, etc.
- Closed-loop chemical recycling of composite materials and multilayer films using pyrolysis and microwave assisted reactions, etc.
- Polymer design for circularity: Balancing performance and depolymerizability.
- Upcycling plastic waste into high-value specialty chemicals.
- Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of advanced recycling technologies.
Dr. Olivia Soliman
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-blind 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
- mixed plastic waste
- chemical depolymerization
- upcycling
- closed loop recycling
- catalytic depolymerization
- enzymatic degradation
- mechanochemistry
- polymer design for recycling
- life cycle assessment (LCA)
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