Fabrication, Characteristics and Applications of Multifunctional Polymer Nanocomposites

Polymer nanocomposite materials are a type of composite material that physically or covalently incorporate nanosized particles into a matrix of polymer networks, which have been developed as a popular means for the creation of novel materials with diverse functionality. In polymer nanocomposites, the flexible macromolecular chains and rigid nanofillers can be considered as mortars and bricks, respectively. Flexible macromolecular chains as mortars can connect, host, and integrate the bricks to maintain structural integrity. Moreover, the introduced rigid nanofillers as bricks render new functionalities to the final polymer composites and produce superior physicochemical properties absent in individual components. The incorporation of nanomaterials into polymer matrices has been demonstrated to be able to offer an efficient route to enhance the physicochemical properties and thus expand the application scopes of both polymer materials and nanomaterials. On the one hand, this Special Issue provides an overview of the most recent advances in the field of polymer nanocomposites for various applications, especially for biomedical and environmental applications, as well as oilfield exploitation. On the other hand, this Special Issue presents some original research or review articles on the methods or strategies for the design, preparation, functionalization, and characterization of polymer nanocomposites, highlighting the latest scientific and technological developments of high-performance polymer nanocomposites with unique properties, structures, or compositions.