Carbon capture and storage will play a crucial role in industrial decarbonisation. However, the current literature presents a large variability in the techno-economic feasibility of CO₂ capture technologies. Consequently, reliable pathways for carbon capture deployment in energy-intensive industries are still missing. This work provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art CO₂ capture technologies for decarbonisation of the iron and steel, cement, petroleum refining, and pulp and paper industries. Amine scrubbing was shown to be the least feasible option, resulting in the average avoided CO₂ cost of between 62.7 {{\text{€·t}}_{{\text{CO}}_2}}^{-1} for the pulp and paper and 104.6 {{\text{€·t}}_{{\text{CO}}_2}}^{-1} for the iron and steel industry. Its average equivalent energy requirement varied between 2.7 (iron and steel) and 5.1 {{\text{MJ}}_{\text{th}}\cdot {\text{kg}}_{{\text{CO}}_2}}^{-1} (cement). Retrofits of emerging calcium looping were shown to improve the overall viability of CO₂ capture for industrial decarbonisation. Calcium looping was shown to result in the average avoided CO₂ cost of between 32.7 (iron and steel) and 42.9 {{\text{€·t}}_{{\text{CO}}_2}}^{-1} (cement). Its average equivalent energy requirement varied between 2.0 (iron and steel) and 3.7 {{\text{MJ}}_{\text{th}}\cdot {\text{kg}}_{{\text{CO}}_2}}^{-1} (pulp and paper). Such performance demonstrated the superiority of calcium looping for industrial decarbonisation. Further work should focus on standardising the techno-economic assessment of technologies for industrial decarbonisation.

In materials chemistry, green chemistry has established firm ground providing essential design criteria to develop advanced tools for efficient functionalization and modification of materials. Particularly, the combination of multicomponent reactions in water and aqueous media with materials chemistry unlocks a new sustainable way for constructing multi-functionalized structures with unique features, playing significant roles in the plethora of applications. Multicomponent reactions have received significant consideration from the community of material chemistry because of their great efficiency, simple operations, intrinsic molecular diversity, and an atom and a pot economy. Also, by rational design of multicomponent reactions in water and aqueous media, the performance of some multicomponent reactions could be enhanced by the contributing “natural” form of water-soluble materials, the exclusive solvating features of water, and simple separating and recovering materials. To date, there is no exclusive review to report the sustainable functionalization and modification of materials in water. This critical review highlights the utility of various kinds of multicomponent reactions in water and aqueous media as green methods for functionalization and modification of siliceous, magnetic, and carbonaceous materials, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, peptides, proteins, and synthetic polymers. The detailed discussion of synthetic procedures, properties, and related applicability of each functionalized/modified material is fully deliberated in this review.

A simple method was developed to tune the porosity of coal-derived activated carbons, which provided a model adsorbent system to investigate the volumetric CO₂ adsorption performance. Specifically, the method involved the variation of the activation temperature in a K₂CO₃ induced chemical activation process which could yield activated carbons with defined microporous (< 2 nm, including ultra-microporous < 1 nm) and meso-micro-porous structures. CO₂ adsorption isotherms revealed that the microporous activated carbon has the highest measured CO₂ adsorption capacity (6.0 mmol∙g^–1 at 0 °C and 4.1 mmol∙g^–1 at 25 °C), whilst ultra-microporous activated carbon with a high packing density exhibited the highest normalized capacity with respect to packing volume (1.8 mmol∙cm⁻³ at 0 °C and 1.3 mmol∙cm^–3 at 25 °C), which is significant. Both experimental correlation analysis and molecular dynamics simulation demonstrated that (i) volumetric CO₂ adsorption capacity is directly proportional to the ultra-micropore volume, and (ii) an increase in micropore sizes is beneficial to improve the volumetric capacity, but may lead a low CO₂ adsorption density and thus low pore space utilization efficiency. The adsorption experiments on the activated carbons established the criterion for designing CO₂ adsorbents with high volumetric adsorption capacity.

Self-healing coatings for long-term corrosion protection have received much interest in recent years. However, most self-healing coatings rely on healants released from microcapsules, dynamic bonds, shape memory, or thermoplastic materials, which generally suffer from limited healing times or harsh conditions for self-healing, such as high temperature and UV radiation. Herein, we present a composite coating with a self-healing function under easily accessible sunlight by adding Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles and tetradecanol into epoxy resin. Tetradecanol, with its moderate melting point, and Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles serve as a phase-change component and photothermal material in an epoxy coating system, respectively. Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles endow this composite self-healing coating with good photothermal properties and a rapid thermal response time under simulated solar irradiation as well as outdoor real sunlight. Tetradecanol can flow to and fill defects by phase transition at low temperatures. Therefore, artificial defects created in this type of self-healing coating can be healed by the liquified tetradecanol induced by the photothermal effect of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles under simulated solar irradiation. The healed coating can still serve as a good barrier for the protection of the underlying carbon steel. These excellent properties make this self-healing coating an excellent candidate for various engineering applications.

The exploration of efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction is pivotal for the development of rechargeable metal–air batteries. Transition metal phosphides are emerging as promising catalyst candidates because of their superb activity and low cost. Herein, a novel metal phosphonate-derived cobalt/nickel phosphide@N-doped carbon hybrid was developed by a carbothermal reduction of cobalt/nickel phosphonate hybrids with different Co/Ni molar ratios. The metal phosphonate derivation method achieved an intimately coupled interaction between metal phosphides and a heteroatom-doped carbon substrate. The resultant Co₂P/Ni₃P@NC-0.2 enables an impressive electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction activity, comparable with those of state-of-the-art Pt/C catalysts in terms of onset potential (0.88 V), 4e^‒ selectivity, methanol tolerance, and long-term durability. Moreover, remarkable oxygen evolution reaction activity was also observed in alkaline conditions. The high activity is ascribed to the N-doping, abundant accessible catalytic active sites, and the synergistic effect among the components. This work not only describes a high-efficiency electrocatalyst for both oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction, but also highlights the application of metal phosphonate hybrids in fabricating metal phosphides with tunable structures, which is of great significance in the energy conversion field.

The preparation of environmentally friendly oil/water separation materials remains a great challenge. Freeze-drying of wood after lignin removal yields wood aerogels, which can be used as substrates to prepare fluorine-free environmentally friendly superhydrophobic materials, However, they are more suitable for absorption rather than filtration applications due to their poor strength. A study using cross-sections of pristine wood chips as substrates retains the original strength of wood, but the use of the cross-sectional of wood pieces limits their thickness, strength, and size. In this paper, a degradable fluorine-free superhydrophobic film (max. water contact angle of approximately 164.2°) with self-cleaning and abrasion resistance characteristics was prepared by a one-step method using pristine and activated walnut longitudinal section films as the substrate, with tetraethyl orthosilicate as a precursor and dodecyltriethoxysilane as a modifier. The tensile strength results show that superhydrophobic films with pristine or activated wood substrates maintained the strength of pristine wood and were 2.2 times stronger than the wood aerogel substrate. In addition, after cross-laminating the two samples, the films had the ability to separate oil and water by continuous filtration with high efficiency (98.5%) and flux (approximately 1.3 × 10³ L∙m^‒2∙h^‒1). The method has potential for the large-scale fabrication of degradable superhydrophobic filtration separation membranes.

UiO-66-NH₂ is an efficient material for removing pollutants from wastewater due to its high specific surface area, high porosity and water stability. However, recycling them from wastewater is difficult. In this study, the cellulose nanofibers mat deacetylated from cellulose acetate nanofibers were used to combine with UiO-66-NH₂ by the method of in-situ growth to remove the toxic dye, rose bengal. Compared to previous work, the prepared composite could not only provide ease of separation of UiO-66-NH₂ from the water after adsorption but also demonstrate better adsorption capacity (683 mg∙g^‒1 (T = 25 °C, pH = 3)) than that of the simple UiO-66-NH₂ (309.6 mg∙g^‒1 (T = 25 °C, pH = 3)). Through the analysis of adsorption kinetics and isotherms, the adsorption for rose bengal is mainly suitable for the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Freundlich model. Furthermore, the relevant research revealed that the main adsorption mechanism of the composite was electrostatic interaction, hydrogen bonding and π–π interaction. Overall, the approach depicts an efficient model for integrating metal-organic frameworks on cellulose nanofibers to improve metal-organic framework recovery performance with potentially broad applications.

The degradation of polymeric materials is recognized as one of the goals to be fulfilled for the sustainable economy. In this study, a novel methodology was presented to synthesize multiple highly cross-linked polymers (i.e., hydrogels) through amine–thiol scrambling under mild conditions. Amine-terminated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG-NH₂) was reacted with the representative conjugate acceptors to synthesize hydrogels in organic and aqueous solutions, respectively. The materials above exhibited high water-swelling properties, distributed porous structures, as well as prominent mechanical strengths. It is noteworthy that the mentioned hydrogels could be degraded efficiently in hours to release the original coupling partner, which were induced by ethylene diamine at ambient temperature through amine-amine metathesis. The recovered PEG-NH₂ reagent could be employed again to regenerate hydrogels. Due to the multiple architectures and functions in polymeric synthesis, degradation and regeneration, a new generation of “smart” materials is revealed.

Beta-cyclodextrin-based adsorbent is a promising adsorbent because it has unique characteristics and able to form host-guest complexes with various organic compounds. Adsorption using beta-cyclodextrin-based adsorbent has continuously improved by various preparation strategies and crosslinking agents. This commentary aims to highlight the preparation strategies, properties, and adsorption mechanisms of beta-cyclodextrin-based adsorbents. The adsorbents can be generally classified according to the preparation methods and display high adsorption capacity especially for dyes. Particularly, composite/nanocomposite beta-cyclodextrin-based adsorbents exhibit outstanding adsorption capacity even though the surface area is lower than that of porous and magnetic beta-cyclodextrin-based adsorbents. The beta-cyclodextrin/chitosan functionalized graphene oxide hydrogel with specific surface of 17.6 m²·g^–1 yields an extraordinarily maximum adsorption capacity of 1499 mg·g^–1 methylene blue, while beta-cyclodextrin/chitosan modified with iron(II, III) oxide nanoparticles displays a much greater maximum adsorption capacity at 2780 mg·g^–1. The hydrophobic interaction, functional groups, hydrogen bonding, and electrostatic interaction govern the adsorption to a greater capacity. Although this commentary is not exhaustive, the preparation strategies and illustrated mechanisms provide useful insights into the adsorbent–adsorbate interactions, cost-effective analysis, challenges, and future directions of beta-cyclodextrin-based adsorbents in wastewater treatment.