Current Trends and Perspectives in the Application of Polymeric Materials to Wastewater Treatment

Recent advances in polymer composite, extraction, and their application for wastewater treatment: A review

Wastewater from diverse industrial sectors, agricultural practices and other household activities causes water pollution that result in different environmental issues. The main goals of wastewater treatment are typically to enhance the purity of wastewater and to enable the disposal of domestic and industrial effluents without endangering human health or causing excessive environmental issues. There were several natural and synthetic materials which have been utilized for wastewater treatment, amongst them polymers gain more importance due to their non-toxicity, economic feasibility, abundant availability of sources, renewability, biocompatibility, biodegradability, etc. The organic polymers such as cellulose, chitin, gelatin, alginates, lignin, dextran and other starch derivatives are the most commonly used natural polymers in wastewater treatments. The unique physical and chemical characteristics of the natural polymers make them become an alternative in wastewater treatments such as membrane filtration, adsorption, coagulation, flocculation and ion-exchange process to remove harmful contaminants such as toxic metals, dyes, medicines, pesticides, and so on. The review article discusses natural polymers and related uses in wastewater treatment. This review mainly focused on the wastewater treatment using natural polymers and the techniques involved for their extraction from natural sources. The recent trends in polymer extraction from the natural sources and the scope for the future research of natural polymers in various sectors are also discussed in detail.

Novel and sustainable carboxylation of terminal alkynes and CO2 to alkynyl carboxylic acids using triazolium ionic liquid-modified PMO-supported transition metal acetylacetonate as effective cooperative catalysts

Efficient and sustainable chemical fixation of CO₂ into value-added chemicals is one of the most promising objectives in environmental chemistry. In this work, transition metal acetylacetonate immobilized onto triazolium ionic liquid-modified periodic mesoporous organosilica PMO-IL-M(x) was successfully prepared and investigated as an effective and heterogeneous catalyst in the direct carboxylation of terminal alkynes and CO₂ to the desired alkynyl carboxylic acids. It was found that the catalyst PMO-IL-Sn(0.3) exhibited extraordinary catalytic performance in terms of excellent activity, stability, productivity, and excellent yields under mild reaction conditions. Moreover, the catalyst PMO-IL-Sn(0.3) could be easily recovered and reused at least six times without considerable loss in catalytic activity. This work provides a sustainable and efficient synergistic strategy for the chemical fixation of carbon dioxide into valuable alkynyl carboxylic acids.