Industrial operations, domestic and agricultural activities worldwide have had major problems with various contaminants caused by environmental pollution. Heavy metal pollution in wastewater also a prominent issue; therefore, a well built and economical treatment technology is demanded for pollution-free wastewater. The present work emphasized pure cellulose extracted from jute fiber and further modification was performed by a free radical grafting reaction, which resulted in poly(methyl acrylate) (PMA)-grafted cellulose and poly(acrylonitrile)-grafted cellulose. Subsequently, poly(hydroxamic acid) and poly(amidoxime) ligands were prepared from the PMA-grafted cellulose and PAN-grafted cellulose, respectively. An adsorption study was performed using the desired ligands with heavy metals such as copper, cobalt, chromium and nickel ions. The binding capacity (q_e) with copper ions for poly(hydroxamic acid) is 352 mg g⁻¹ whereas q_e for poly(amidoxime) ligand it was exhibited as 310 mg g⁻¹. Other metal ions (chromium, cobalt and nickel) show significance binding properties at pH 6. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm study was also performed. The Freundlich isotherm model showed good correlation coefficients for all metal ions, indicating that multiple-layers adsorption was occurred by the polymer ligands. The reusability was evaluated and the adsorbents can be reused for 7 cycles without significant loss of removal performance. Both ligands showed outstanding metals removal capacity from the industrial wastewater as such 98% of copper can be removed from electroplating wastewater and other metals (cobalt, chromium, nickel and lead) can also be removed up to 90%.

Azo-functionalized materials are one of the appealing groups of the functionalized materials owing to their photoswitching behaviour and have been explored for various potential applications viz., optical data storage, sensor, display devices, nonlinear materials and molecular switches. Recently, azo-functionalized bent-core liquid crystals (BCLCs) have gained significant attention because they have dual properties of BCLCs and azobenzene, which enables to generate new multifaceted functional and smart materials. In this report, the recently synthesized azobenzene containing bent-core mesogens and its subclass, the so-called hockey stick and V-shaped molecules are summarized. The mesomorphic behaviour of reported BCLCs affected by the type of central core unit, the nature, number and position of the lateral substituents and the type and length of the terminal chain are discussed. The photoisomerization process of these photoresponsive BCLCs in solid, solution and mesophase, as well as the impact of light on the chemical and electrical properties of them, are discussed.

The transition metal-catalyzed chemical transformation of organic electrophiles, and organometallic reagents have turned up as an exceedingly robust synthetic tool. The evolution of transition metal catalysts has attained a stage of civilization that authorizes for an extensive scope of chemical bonds formation partners to be combined efficiently. The applications of Cu-based nanoparticles have received great attention owing to the earth-abundant, low toxicity and inexpensive. Due to these characteristics, copper nanoparticles have generated a great deal of interest especially in the field of catalysis. In this study, poly(acrylonitrile) was synthesized by undergoes free-radical initiation process and followed by Beckmann rearrangement with hydroxylamine solution converted into the poly(amidoxime) ligand and anchored the copper onto poly(amidoxime). Cu(II)@PAM was characterized using different techniques such as FTIR, FESEM, EDX, TEM, TGA, DSC, ICP-OES, and XPS analyses. The Cu(II)@PAM showed high stability and high catalytic activity in a wide variety of electrophilic substituted phenols with substituted aryl/benzyl halides. 0.15 mol%, ±3 mg of Cu(II)@PAM could efficiently promote Ullmann reaction to give the corresponding coupling product up to 99 % yields. The complex was easy separated and recovered from the reaction mixture by simple filtration.