Removal of contaminants in wastewater, such as heavy metals, has become a severe problem in the world. Numerous technologies have been developed to deal with this problem. As an emerging technology, nanotechnology has been gaining increasing interest and many nanomaterials have been developed to remove heavy metals from polluted water, due to their excellent features resulting from the nanometer effect. In this work, novel nanomaterials, including carbon-based nanomaterials, zero-valent metal, metal-oxide based nanomaterials, and nanocomposites, and their applications for the removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater were systematically reviewed. Their efficiency, limitations, and advantages were compared and discussed. Furthermore, the promising perspective of nanomaterials in environmental applications was also discussed and potential directions for future work were suggested.

Research progress and potential trends about six critical chiral resolution methods are summarized. Notable performance improvements based on the state-of-the-art “coupling” strategies are highlighted.

An overview of the materials and structures, applications and modern analytical technology for microfluidic crystallization is presented.

Organic crystals, possessing both flexibility and stimuli-responsive properties, are attractive candidates as smart materials, namely sensors, actuators, optoelectronic devices, information storage, medical applications, etc. They are emerging as a new research direction in materials science, namely, crystal adaptronics. For a long time, it has been generally considered that crystals are inclined to crack upon external force, which limits their application as elements. Recently, however, more and more crystals that display excellent deformation have been reported, which sparks interest in their potential applications as stimuli-responsive flexible smart materials. This comprehensive review summarizes these remarkably flexible crystals with stimuli-responsive (light, thermal, electrical and multiple) properties reported to date, delves into their response mechanisms and structure–property relationships, and discusses the design strategies for endowing flexible organic crystals with stimuli-responsive properties. Finally, the challenges and future outlook in this field are discussed.