The main challenge of modern polymer science is to search for ways of further development of polymer civilization, which obviously includes living organisms on the Earth, without harmful consequences for civilization and the planet in its entirety. The review considers approaches to handle the problem of environmental accumulation of plastic waste. Promising trends in the development of polymer technologies, which can significantly reduce the amount of waste produced, are highlighted. Separate Sections address original methods of additive manufacturing technologies, such as the extrusion printing technique to produce multilayer films, 3D printing by using high-temperature polyimide materials, new functional siloxane oligomers and hydrogels for medical uses. Much attention is paid to the development and applications of biodegradable materials in medicine, packaging industry and agriculture. An analysis of the European strategy for plastics and plastic disposal demonstrates that it has a number of limitations due to high energy requirements and changes in Earth's carbon balance. The modern approach to plastic waste management free from these shortcomings is briefly outlined. Bibliography — 1233 references.

Direct fluorination of polymers is a widely utilized technique for chemical modification. Such introduction of fluorine into the chemical structure of polymeric materials leads to laminates with highly fluorinated surface layer. The physicochemical properties of this layer are similar to those of perfluorinated polymers that differ by a unique combination of chemical resistance, weak adhesion, low cohesion, and permittivity, often barrier properties, etc. Surface modification by elemental fluorine allows one to avoid laborious synthesis of perfluoropolymers and impart such properties to industrial polymeric materials. The current review is devoted to a detailed consideration of wetting by water, energy characteristics of surfaces, adhesion, mechanical and electrical properties of the polymers, and composites after the direct fluorination.

Parylene is a widely used polymer possessing advantages such as simple and cheap production, possibility of fabrication on flexible substrates, transparency, and safety for the human body. Moreover, parylene can be used as an active layer of memristors—circuit design elements that are promising for the implementation of hardware neuromorphic systems. Recent studies show that memristors are not merely memory but also highly dynamical systems that can encode timing information. Here, a study of the switching kinetics and the timing second-order effects in memristors based on pristine and nanocomposite (with embedded silver nanoparticles) parylene is presented. The strong decrease in the resistive switching time and increase in the amplitude of the resistive state change after preliminary heating pulses are revealed. These effects are explained by the local heating of the parylene matrix by electric pulses, and the given explanation is supported by the numerical electrothermal model. Spike-timing-dependent plasticity with symmetrical nonoverlapping spikes is demonstrated. The obtained results indicate a possibility of the utilization of second-order effects in the development of the neuromorphic systems.