Against the backdrop of growing environmental and industrial risks, particularly those associated with toxic CO emissions, the development of highly sensitive gas sensors capable of operating stably at room temperature is of strategic importance.

Mining and metallurgical wastes contain reactive Fe-, Al-, Ca-, Mg-, and Mn-bearing phases. These phases can be used for water treatment. Their performance depends on mineral accessibility, processing history, and water chemistry rather than waste identity alone. This review compares tailings, slags, red mud, and leaching residues for inorganic and organic contaminant removal, focusing on mechanisms, modification intensity, and validation. Cations are removed by ion exchange, surface complexation, and precipitation, whereas anion removal relies on Fe/Al sites, Ca-mediated mineral formation, and redox reactions. Organic treatment proceeds through adsorption or catalytic transformation and generally requires activation or additional functional phases. Red mud and blast-furnace slag showed the broadest applicability across both pollutant classes, although no unchanged formulation was validated for both. Under favorable conditions, waste-derived sorbents can achieve pollutant-removal efficiencies approaching 100% in synthetic solutions. However, their performance generally decreases in real wastewater and under continuous or cyclic operating conditions, with reported efficiency losses reaching approximately 25 percentage points. Deployment and machine-learning-assisted selection require application-matched processing, real-water and static/dynamic validation, and standardized reporting of separation, regeneration, cyclic stability, mass loss, secondary leaching, and spent-material fate.

Mining and metallurgical wastes contain potentially valuable mineral resources but pose growing environmental risks. This review proposes a mineralogy-guided framework for converting these wastes into low-carbon binders and construction materials. Rather than classifying residues by origin or bulk oxide composition, it distinguishes them according to the reaction roles of their mineral phases. The framework first distinguishes self-sufficient systems, in which activation unlocks the intrinsic mineral inventory of the waste sufficiently for matrix or product formation, from mineralogically compensated systems, in which additional functional mineral solids are required to supply deficient reactive Si, Al, Ca, sulfate, alkalinity, or other phase-forming components. Binary and multicomponent formulations are then interpreted according to the specific mineralogical functions supplied by the complementary solids and the resulting changes in reaction pathways and products. Thermal, hydrothermal, mechanochemical, alkaline, and carbonation-based processing routes are compared in relation to phase composition, co-precursor function, and the mechanical, thermal, and service properties of concretes, foams, and backfill materials. Evidence indicates that performance depends more on chemical complementarity than on maximizing waste content. Environmental benefits must also account for contaminant immobilization, carbon dioxide binding, and the energy and reagent demand of pretreatment. Mineralogy-informed machine-learning models may support inverse mixture design, but their transferability remains constrained by feedstock heterogeneity and limited standardized data. The framework links mineralogy, processing, reaction products, performance, and scale-up.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) provide a modular platform for controlling energetic performance, ignition, combustion, thermal stability, and safety, but the structural origin of these effects is often difficult to distinguish from interfacial contributions in multicomponent pyrotechnic formulations. This review organizes MOF functionalization according to the dominant level of modification: internal-framework functionalization (IF), including linker, metal-node, pore, counterion, and guest engineering, and external/interfacial functionalization (EF), including interfaces with metallic or boron fuels, carbon materials, oxidizers, and polymer matrices. Only systems in which intact MOFs are introduced into the energetic formulation are considered, and representative studies are compared through structure–mechanism–response relationships. The analysis shows that IF primarily governs intrinsic chemical reactivity, redox pathways, energetic content, initiation mode, and sensitivity, whereas EF determines how efficiently this functionality is delivered through heat, mass, and charge transfer and spatial contact. Reported improvements in decomposition, ignition, combustion, and pressure generation are strongly condition-dependent and may involve trade-offs in sensitivity, compatibility, or active-fuel fraction. Functionalization should therefore be selected according to the rate-limiting stage of the target formulation, with matched controls and formulation-level validation required for mechanistic interpretation and practical design.

Mineral and metallurgical feedstocks, including ores, concentrates, industrial residues, and hazardous mineral-like wastes, are increasingly important sources for resource recovery and valorization, but their complex composition often limits conventional processing routes. This review critically examines combustion-assisted processing strategies, including self-propagating high-temperature synthesis, for the treatment of primary and secondary mineral resources. Particular attention is given to the transition from model powder systems to compositionally complex real feedstocks and to the effects of mineralogy, inert gangue, volatile components, toxic impurities and feedstock variability on reaction behavior and product quality. The reviewed studies are evaluated in terms of thermochemical feasibility, combustion-front stability, phase formation, metal–slag separation, impurity partitioning, product qualification and environmental performance. The analysis indicates that combustion-assisted routes are most promising when internal heat release is coupled with reduction, alloying, carburization, nitridation, sintering, vitrification or immobilization, enabling metal recovery, waste valorization and direct formation of useful products. Their broader implementation remains constrained by incomplete conversion, volatile-metal control, post-treatment requirements and limited scale-up and techno-economic validation. Future development requires defined processing windows, predictive modelling, digital monitoring, integrated separation and systematic environmental assessment.