Nowadays, every piece of working equipment has to comply with safety standards and laws. Personal protective equipment, according to current legislation, is considered to be any equipment intended to protect personnel against any hazards that might endanger their safety and health, as well as any additional element/accessory designed for this purpose, including equipment used by emergency and rescue services, military and law-enforcement personnel, and sports, self-defense, or deterrent equipment.

The volume of safety research has recently increased dramatically. Several development paths associated with different underlying principles have been further developed, while new materials and technologies have emerged. New methods have been developed to ensure and assess safety, covering broad classes of safety problems or focusing on specific problems in particular but in diverse application domains. Meanwhile, legal and effectiveness requirements have an impact on the design, manufacture, and use of new materials in safety equipment.

This special issue aims to publish original research papers presenting cutting-edge advances in the field of personal safety equipment and systems design and manufacturing. We aim to contribute to the systemization of the safety body of knowledge by bringing to the attention of scientists, researchers, engineers, and students the research progress and development and new applications of safety materials, and to exchange ideas in the field of materials for personal protective equipment and safety systems. Contributions on emerging synthesis and processing technologies of safety materials, such as those related to “fire-resistant materials”, “bullet-proof fabrics”, “dirt-free fabrics”, and “smart fabrics” are especially welcome. Review articles on the current quality and research into materials for safety equipment are also welcome.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Studies on the properties and effectiveness of materials for safety equipment
• Fire-resistant materials
• Newly developed materials for use in PPE and their properties
• Composite materials, glassy materials, carbon materials, and their applications in safety equipment
• The production and applications of bullet-proof materials
• Polymeric materials for PPE manufacturing
• Dirt-free materials for use by emergency and rescue services
• Applications of safety materials in novel products
• High performance and optimum design of structures and materials for safety purposes
• The processing of materials for safety equipment
• Applications of smart fabrics to safety systems