ACS Polymers Au’s Grand Challenges in Polymer Science

Abstract

W are happy to present this first collection of Perspectives on the “Grand Challenges in Polymer Science”. These six Perspectives from world-leading experts in various subfields of polymer science and engineering present their views on the important problems that researchers in the polymer community could tackle to find sustainable long-term solutions. Some of these technical questions are new as the field evolves, some are yet to be answered due to limitations in existing�synthetic, characterization, computation/theory� methods, while others have been answered partially or continue to be debated by researchers with opposing scientific observations. The Perspectives in this virtual special issue highlight the past, present, and future for each of these complex problems in polymer science. As we started writing this Editorial on ACS Polymers Au’s “Grand Challenges in Polymer Science”, it dawned on us that this issue comes exactly five years after Tim Lodge, then Editor-in-Chief of Macromolecules, penned his Editorial “Celebrating 50 years of Macromolecules”. In his retrospective and forward-looking Editorial, he presented his thoughts on the “top ten technological and intellectual achievements” in polymer science over the past five decades as well as the “top ten current challenges” in polymer science that remained to be solved. Table 1 below lists these top ten current challenges from his Editorial.