The IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) characterizes bioplastics as biobased polymers that can be shaped by flow when they are processed, and that are made out of either biomass ...

Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic ends up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can’t last forever. But our group of materials ...

Despite being relatively new, synthetic polymers — also known as plastics — are one of the most widely produced materials by volume 1. Most developments in polymer design were driven by demands for ...

The first self-healing polymer has been produced by material scientists at RIKEN using a commercially available compound. The team offers a promising method for increasing the toughness and reducing ...

Big problems call for big ideas. One of the biggest challenges from a wide-angle environmental view is figuring out what to do about carbon dioxide, which accounts for 76% of greenhouse gas (GHG) ...