Polymer Degradation and Stability 97 (2012) 1851
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Editorial
BIOPOL-2011 Special Issue The production and consumption of polymeric materials are more and more controlled by the management of the primary resource and the treatment of the post-consumer plastic waste. For this reason, the analysis of the cycle cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-cradle is more and more taken into account for such materials developments. Nowadays, the use of renewable bio-based carbon feedstock is highly taken into consideration because it offers the intrinsic value of a reduced carbon footprint and an improved life cycle analysis (LCA), in agreement with a sustainable development. That is why forthcoming materials for daily use will be obtained more and more from the biomass. For instance, the global growth in the production of biobased polymers is 10-20% per year, at the present. All these elements have encouraged the search for environmentally-friendly materials with biobased and/or biodegradable polymers such as carbohydrates, proteins or polyhydroxyalkanaotes that can be composted or recycled, and also biobased and durable polymers such as some polyamides or polyurethanes obtained from vegetable oils, which present some new macromolecular architectures, and can be recycled. All these polymers have lately received increased attention due to more environmentally aware consumers, increased price of crude oil, low-availability of some petroleum fractions, global warming issues and also the necessity to develop new polymers with original structures. This is the main reasons for the organisation of a biannual series of conferences named “International Conference on Biodegradable and Biobased Polymers (BIOPOL)” devoted to the presentation of new and updated results on all subjects concerning these materials. One of the main points to be emphasized is their production (chemistry and biotechnology), properties and applications, and the choice of the end of life (composting or recycling) on agreement with their LCA.
0141-3910/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2012.07.044
The papers making up this Special issue of Polymer Degradation and Stability were all presented at the 3rd conference of this series (BIOPOL-2011) held in Strasbourg, France, 29-31 August 2011. The conference was organised by the University of Strasbourg with collaboration of some academic and industrial partners and has attracted around 350 delegates from all over the world. The selected papers in this edition of Polymer Degradation and Stability are submissions invited by the guest editors, whose main goal was to present some of the latest research selected between lectures and posters dealing with these polymers. We hope that these papers will be of interest for many scientists in the field of polymer science, in connection with both the beginning and the end of life of these materials. We, as guest editors, hope that these review and original papers will represent new insight in polymer science and we will be glad if readers enjoy this special edition of Polymer Degradation and Stability.
Luc Avérous*, Eric Pollet BioTeam/ECPM-LIPHT, Université de Strasbourg, 25 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg, Cedex 2, France * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ33 (0)368852784; fax: þ33 (0)368852716. E-mail address:
[email protected] (L. Avérous) Available online 7 August 2012
