Call For Papers: Water Soluble Polymers

Water soluble polymers are ubiquitous, with applications in cosmetics, detergents, pharmaceuticals and the petroleum industry. A symposium at the ACS Spring meeting 2025 was dedicated to the topic, bringing together researchers working in academia and industry on the design, characterization, modeling and sustainability of water-soluble polymers, with the aim of developing new, sustainable materials.

ACS Applied Polymer Materials, ACS Macro Letters, ACS Polymers Au, and Polymer Science & Technology are pleased to host a special issue covering the breadth of this evolving field. Submissions are welcome through November 30, 2025.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Synthesis and industrialization – developing new, functional, and sustainable water-soluble polymers and/or developing new approaches to synthesis and industrialization of current water-soluble polymers.
• Characterization – polymer characterization approaches across the polymer’s lifecycle (from synthesis to end-of-life), used to build structure-function relationships, enable quality control during manufacturing, understand polymer behavior during formulation, processing, and use, and understand the polymer’s fate at end-of-life.
• Sustainability – approaches and considerations for sustainable polymer design, with specific focus on the potential for natural polymers to deliver functionality and sustainability.
• Modeling – new approaches for modeling to accelerate the design and understanding of sustainable water-soluble polymer function and dynamics across the polymer’s lifecycle.

Organizing Editors

Dr. Matt Lynch, Guest Editor
Procter & Gamble, United States

Prof. Blair Kathryn Brettmann, Associate Editor, ACS Applied Polymer Materials
Georgia Institute of Technology, United States

Prof. Stuart Rowan, Editor-in-Chief, ACS Macro Letters
University of Chicago, United States

Prof. Sébastien Perrier, Deputy Editor, ACS Polymers Au
University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Prof. Patrick Theato, Associate Editor, Polymer Science & Technology
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Submission Information

We welcome submissions for this Special Issue through November 30, 2025. For more information on submission requirements, please visit each journal’s Author Guidelines page:

ACS Applied Polymer Materials

ACS Macro Letters

ACS Polymers Au

Polymer Science & Technology

Please check the Author Guidelines to confirm the article types available in each journal, and their requirements. Should you have any questions, please reach out to the relevant journal editor (see information below).

Papers accepted for publication for this Special Issue will be available ASAP (as soon as publishable) online. After all submissions have been published, they will then be compiled online on a dedicated landing page to form the Special Issue. Manuscripts submitted for consideration will undergo the full rigorous peer review process expected from ACS journals.

Open Access: There are diverse open access options for publications in American Chemical Society journals. Please visit our Open Science Resource Center for more information.

Both ACS Polymers Au and Polymer Science & Technology are gold open access journals. Please see the Open Access Pricing for Authors page for more information.

How to Submit

• Log in to the ACS Publishing Center.
• Select the “Journals” tab.
• Choose the appropriate journal for your submission.
• Click “Submit.”
• Select your manuscript type, and, under "Special Issue Selection," choose "Water Soluble Polymers."

If you have any general questions regarding submission to this Special Issue, please contact Prof. Stuart Rowan (ACS Macro Letters), Prof. Seb Perrier (ACS Polymers Au), Prof. Blair Kathryn Brettmann (ACS Applied Polymer Materials), or Prof. Patrick Theato (Polymer Science & Technology).

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