Sustainable Chemical Process Design for Advanced Materials and Circular Manufacturing

As more attention is being given to minimizing the environmental impacts of materials, more efforts have been made toward assessing the environmental impacts of the entire life cycle process rather than modifying individual material components. This is especially true of materials such as polymers, coatings, composite materials, and others, as choices made in their preparation and fabrication can not only affect the consumption of resources in the production process, but also recovery of waste generated during the manufacturing process and the ease with which the finished product may be repaired, reused, recycled, or reprocessed chemically.This sets the researcher or manufacturer an operational challenge of developing an environmentally preferable process that is capable of producing an environmentally superior material that will still meet performance criteria and be operationally possible in the production process.Manufacturing an advanced material involves much more than the selection of a material with a lower impact on the environment. Factors such as processing conditions, use of solvents, energy requirements, yield, lifecycle, and end-of-life choices could all affect the environmental footprint of the material just as well. Yet, for many materials today, these processes remain disconnected from each other.This Research Topic will be dedicated to studies combining material and process development. Specifically, we are looking for studies in which some modifications in terms of formulation, synthesis, process, and/or recovery are shown to reduce the use of resources and energy without negatively affecting the performance of the material. Such studies could relate to polymers, coatings, composites, functional materials, and chemicals as well. This collection of studies would also include those where improvements in recyclability lead to trade-offs in processing, performance, costs, or service life of materials.Manuscripts that explore a well-defined relationship between material, process and sustainability issues are encouraged especially those based on empirical or process data. Relevant topics include research on low energy or solvent synthesis and processing, using recycled/recovered/renewable materials in place of virgin feedstocks, recovery and re-use of solvents, monomers, polymers, fillers, or other process stream material; development of polymers, coatings and composite materials for recycling, repair, reprocessing or chemical recycling; and process modification to minimize waste and retain material properties.Life cycle assessment (LCA), techno-economic analysis (TEA), material flow analysis and process simulation are included in the scope when these techniques are applied to a defined material or process and used to evaluate a defined design alternative. Pilot and industrial scale case studies, along with scale-up challenges, are especially relevant.We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Methods, Perspectives, and Case Studies that fall within this defined scope. Topic editors: DR. RENJITH RAJAN PILLAI, JYOTHI Balachandran Nair, Maksim Dolmat Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83483/sustainable-chemical-process-design-for-advanced-materials-and-circular-manufacturing