Special Issue: Advanced Biopolymer-Based Nanocomposites and Hybrid Materials

摘要

The gamut of natural polymers, from polysaccharides to proteins, exhibit peculiar features and multiple functionalities that are being exploited to engineer advanced nanocomposites and hybrid materials. In fact, the growing environmental concerns explain the focus of the increasing scientific activity on both polysaccharides (e.g., cellulose, chitosan, alginate, fucoidan, and hyaluronic acid) and proteins (e.g., silk, collagen, and gelatin), given their remarkable potential for the design of all categories of materials for application in multiple fields, for example, in electronics, energy, environment, biology, and medicine [1,2]. This Special Issue of Materials—belonging to the section Biomaterials—contains a collection of six research papers about advanced biopolymer-based nanocomposites and hybrid materials. The collected papers made use of biopolymers, such as nanocellulose [3], fucoidan [4], silk fibroin [5,6], hyaluronic acid [6], and lignin [7], in combination with a polyzwitterion [3], metal nanoparticles [4,5], organometallic polymers [8], and a thermoplastic polymer [7], to develop advanced systems for water remediation [3], cancer treatment [4], catalysis, sensing, and energy storage [5], tissue engineering [6,8], and 3D printing [7,8].