ICAPPP 2018: Celebrating 30 Years of The Petroleum and Petrochemical College (PPC) at Chulalongkorn University

In the 1980s, Thailand was in the infant stage of the petroleum and petrochemical industries. One of the essential requirements to grow in these fields was inevitably the human resources to serve in them. Thailand's government initiated the National Petrochemical Public Company Limited (NPC) while Chulalongkorn University was responsible for furnishing NPC with knowledgeable students to serve the nation's initiative.The Petroleum and Petrochemical College (PPC) was established in 1988 with strong collaborations from the University of Michigan, the University of Oklahoma, Case Western Reserve University, and later, the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP). International graduate programs were created to confer Masters Degrees in polymer science and petrochemical technology. The programs were extended to Ph.D. degrees in 1997. PPC took the leadership in academic courses, research, as well as tackling industrial problems.Not only had the emphasis been on academia, PPC acknowledged the importance of research and its networks. Numerous research publications resulted from the dedication of PPC staff and worldwide research networks. In 2003, PPC organized the International Conference on Advanced Petroleum and Petrochemicals (ICAPP) (Figure 1). The network of researchers from all over the world attended the conference. The visibility of PPC was then welcomed by the related industries and academic people worldwide. To the present, the academic staff has strengthened their research focuses on petrochemical technologies related to catalysts, surfactants, process engineering, and on polymeric materials in the fields of sensors, biopolymers, blends, hybrids and composites, including supramolecular chemistry. The PPC engaged in global research collaborations with universities and institutes from Japan, Korea, Canada, France, Germany, UK, and Switzerland. More than 1700 research articles have been published in leading international Journals as well as more than 1500 master's students and almost 200 doctoral students successfully graduated. The achievements have shown the impact to the country; enabling the PPC to receive the best awards in education and research from the Office of Higher Education (Ministry of Education), and the Thailand Research Fund (TRF), respectively. A number of PPC professors received distinguished national recognitions, especially The Petroleum Institute of Thailand Awards, Toyota Thailand Foundation (TTF) Award, Toray foundation awards, National Science and Technology Development Agency Chair Professorship Award, National Research Council Outstanding Researcher Award, as well as Senior Scientist TRF Award. The PPC is now known as one of the flagships of Chulalongkorn University. The PPC celebrated its 30th anniversary with an international conference on Advanced and Applied on Petroleum, Petrochemicals, and Polymers (ICAPPP) 2018 (Figure 1), under the theme of “Driving the knowledge and innovation for the sustainable society”. Chulalongkorn University welcomed in its Main Auditorium Hall five plenary speakers: Prof. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Prof. Ignacio Grossmann, Prof. Francoise Winnik, Prof. Neal Tai Shung Chung, and Dr. Nobuyuki Kawashima. Eleven parallel sessions were filled with 65 distinguished international guest speakers and 30 local invited speakers, with about 200 oral and poster presentations in total being delivered to an audience of as many as 700 (Figure 2). This present special issue in Macromolecular Materials and Engineering (MME) is a tribute to highlight the success of ICAPPP 2018 on the occasion of 30 years of the PPC. The articles represent state-of-the-art research advancements delivered at the conference. The 15 selected articles cover invited feature articles (two), invited full papers (nine), and general full papers (four). The overview of bioplastics and fossil-based plastics in the circular economy by Nobuyuki Kawashima leads us to consider the sustainable economic business model with the life cycle analysis under the regulations, waste management systems, including recycling and recovery as well as the bioplastics from nonedible bio-resources. The articles related to synthesis (Kotohiro Nomura, Philippe Zinck, and Fumio Sanda) are based on the use of catalysts for the preparation of well-defined polymer structures and optically active polymers. The articles on development of responsive polymers and supramolecular polymers (Christoph Weder, Voravee Hoven, Ica Manas-Zloczover, Doo Sung Lee) represent different mechanisms for tuning materials. The microstructure analysis and physical properties relationship (Chi Wang, Suwabun Chirachanchai, Wonchalerm Rungsawang, Jitladda Sakdapipanich and Stephan Dubas) is also another topic that each contribution demonstrates an in-depth understanding of the polymer properties. As the vision of the PPC is to be a graduate school that delivers the education and research for the nation's competency, it comes to the question; what is Thailand's competitiveness? Along with global environmental issues covering from green-house effects, petroleum resources and energy crises, to plastic waste accumulation and microplastics, it seems that petrol-based resources to technology need a revisit to integrate a “reduce-reuse-recycle” approach under the circular economy for sustainable development. There is no doubt that Thailand is a natural resource–rich country where the tropical weather allows for an efficient and effective agricultural production. The government has prioritized a “Bio-Circular-Green (BCG)” economy as one of the goals regarding Thailand 4.0. A mega-project, namely Eastern Economic Corridor Innovation (EECi) declares the biopolis where technology and innovation are emphasized so that natural resources can be in combination with petro-based resources for the BCG economy. The petrochemical industries also set the direction of recycling–upcycling to combine with the circular economy. On this viewpoint, the PPC is ready to serve the nation's policy by aiming the transformation of a petrol-based technology not only to a bio-based technology but also the technology platform for a petrol-based circular system. The PPC also plays its role in sharing the expertise and integrating the information and knowledge to develop the BCG platform with the government organizations. The PPC is an active member of the BCG initiatives of the Ministry of Education and Science and Technology to foresee the country's focuses. What about the direction of the PPC? In order to deliver the education and research for the BCG economy, the courses related to biorefinery, biochemical, including biopolymers and bioplastics are introduced in a new curriculum. The research areas in the fields of catalysts for biochemical, separation and purification, bio-based polymers and bio-composites, and advanced biopolymers and biomaterials are starting with an aim to serve the industries and the community. The PPC is now moving forward to welcome international collaborations in education and research as global partners to be a world-class graduate school in Thailand. Suwabun Chirachanchai, Dean of PPC, Chulalongkorn University obtained his Ph.D. in the field of polymer chemistry from Applied Fine Chemistry, Osaka University, and joined the PPC in 1995. His research focuses are functional polymers including biopolymers for drug encapsulations, sensors, membranes, etc. He is driving the PPC to play its important role locally and globally on developing petrol-based and bio-based chemical technologies through industrial networks and academic collaborations.