Nanocellulose (NC)/graphene oxide (GO) composites are attractive materials with a range of unique features obtained from the integration of NC and GO. These materials have high potential use in various sectors such as biomedicine, wastewater remediation, sensor/biosensor technology, and energy storage/conversion. The simple functionalization and modification of NC or GO afford an opportunity for tailoring these materials for anticipated applications. In wastewater treatment applications, they can be employed as reliable adsorbents for the removal of different pollutants, such as metals, dyes, oils, and pesticides as well as sensors for the detection and monitoring of these pollutants. Besides that, NC/GO composites can be applied as catalysts for catalytic degradation for a wide variety of pollutants. These materials have been also reported to be applicable in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, antibacterial and biosensing. Energy storage applications such as supercapacitors NC/GO-based materials were also utilized. This review summarizes NC/GO hybrid fabrication, characterization, and their application in different fields, i.e. sensing, energy storage, and wastewater remediation. It also covered a broad overview of the status of integrating GO with nanocellulose materials, i.e. bacterial cellulose, cellulose nanofibrils, and cellulose nanocrystals. We concluded with the challenges and outlook for NC/GO-based composites.

Traces of pharmaceuticals of various classes have been reported as emerging pollutants, and they continue to be detected in aquatic environments. The steady growth of pharmaceuticals in water, as well as the related negative consequences, has made it a major priority to discover effective ways for their removal from water. Various strategies have been used in the past in order to address this issue. Recently, nanotechnology has emerged as a topic of intense interest for this purpose, and different technologies for removing pharmaceuticals from water have been devised and implemented, such as photolysis, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, and oxidation. Nanotechnological approaches including adsorption and degradation have been comprehensively examined in this paper, along with the applications and limits, in which various types of nanoparticles, nanocomposites, and nanomembranes have played important roles in removing these pharmaceutical pollutants. However, this review focuses on the most often used method, adsorption, as it is regarded as the superior approach due to its low cost, efficiency, and ease of application. Adsorption kinetic models are explained to evaluate the effectiveness of nano-adsorbents in evaluating mass transfer processes in terms of how much can be adsorbed by each method. Several robust metals, metal oxides, and functionalized magnetic nanoparticles have been highlighted, classified, and compared for the removal of pharmaceuticals, such as non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory and antiretroviral drugs, from water. Additionally, current research difficulties and prospects have been highlighted.

This study investigates the electrospinning and rheological properties of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with varying degrees of hydrolysis (DH) for molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) incorporation. The morphology and properties of the electrospun nanofibers were evaluated, revealing that PVA nanofibers exhibited smoother and more uniform structures compared to PET fibers. The rheological behavior of the polymer solutions was also characterized, showing that PVA 99 DH solution exhibited shear-thinning behavior due to the unique structural properties of the polymer chains. The introduction of MIP and NIP additives had no significant impact on the rheological properties, except for PVA 99 MIP and NIP solutions, which showed deviations from Newtonian behavior. The electrospun MIP nanofibers showed a conductivity of 1054 µS/cm for PVA (87–90% DH) and a viscosity of 165.5 mPa·s, leading to optimal fiber formation, while displaying a good adsorption capacity of 0.36 mg for PVA-MIP to effectively target pharmaceuticals such as emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil, showing their potential for advanced water treatment applications. The results suggest that the electrospinning process and rheological properties of the polymer solutions are influenced by the molecular structure and interactions within the polymer matrix, which can be exploited to tailor the properties of MIPs for specific applications.

This study presents an optimized method that is applicable in monitoring the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in a wide range of aquatic environments. The optimised Solid Phase Extraction method is based on Bond Elut Plexa cartridges for the identification and quantification of three non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, three antiretroviral drugs and a lipid regulator in the coastal area of Durban city, South Africa covering four seasons. The extracted compounds are qualitatively and quantitatively detected by a high-performance liquid phase chromatographic instrument coupled to a photodiode array detector. The recoveries range from 62 to 110% with a Relative Standard Deviation of 0.56−4.68%, respectively, for the determination of emtricitabine, tenofovir, naproxen, diclofenac, ibuprofen, efavirenz, and gemfibrozil. The analytical method is validated by spiking estuarine water samples with 5 µg L^− 1 of a mixture containing the target pharmaceuticals and the matrix detection limit is established to be 0.62–1.78 µg L^− 1 for the target compounds. The optimized method is applied to seasonal monitoring of pharmaceuticals at chosen study sites from winter and spring of 2019 and summer and autumn of 2020. The results indicate the concentration of the pharmaceuticals studied varies with the type of aquatic environment and season.

This review critically examines the recent advancements in the development and application of electrospun molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanofiber membranes for environmental remediation. Emphasizing the significance of these materials, the discussion highlights the mechanisms by which electrospun MIPs achieve high selectivity and efficiency in removing various pollutants, including dyes, heavy metals, and pharmaceutical residues such as NSAIDs and antiretroviral drugs. The synthesis methodologies are explored in detail, focusing on the choice of monomers, templates, and polymerization conditions that influence the structural and functional properties of the membranes. Characterization techniques used to assess morphology, surface area, porosity, and imprinting efficacy are also examined, providing insights into how these parameters affect adsorption performance. Furthermore, the review evaluates the performance metrics of electrospun MIPs, including adsorption capacities, selectivity, reusability, and stability in complex environmental matrices. Practical considerations, such as scalability, regeneration, and long-term operational stability, are discussed to assess their potential for real-world applications. The article concludes with an outline of future research directions, emphasizing the need for multi-template imprinting, integration with existing treatment technologies, and field-scale validation to address current limitations.

In this paper, we report the synthesis of a multi-template molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) to target and extract naproxen, ibuprofen, diclofenac, emtricitabine, tenofovir disoproxil, and efavirenz from wastewater bodies. A bulk polymerization procedure was used to synthesize the MIP and non-imprinted polymer (NIP). The specific recognition sites for each target were obtained through the removal of the imprinted targeted compounds. The interaction of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) compounds with the MIP was studied under various conditions such as pH, mass, concentration, and time factors. The results demonstrated the optimum conditions were 55 mg of MIP, pH 7.0, a concentration of 5 mg L⁻¹, and a contact time of 10 min. For every compound studied, the extraction efficiencies for ARVs and NSAIDs in aqueous solutions was >96%. The adsorption capacity for the MIP was >0.91 mg·g⁻¹. Adsorption obeys a second-order rate, and the Freundlich model explains the adsorption isotherm data. This study demonstrated that the synthesized multi-template MIP has huge potential to be employed for the removal of ARVs and NSAIDs from the environment as well as in drug purification or recovery processes.