Absorbent polymers or hydrogel polymer materials have an enhanced water retention capacity and are widely used in agriculture and medicine.

The use of photocatalysts for the degradation of synthetic and organic pollutants, such as dyes and chemicals, has emerged as an effective method for wastewater treatment.

Novel transition metal dithiocarbamates of the type [M2(etdtc)2] and [M¹(etdtc)Cl]2 where M = Mn(II), Fe(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II), M¹ = Cr(III), Fe(III) and etdtc = (S4N4C11H18 ) have been synthesized by the use of self-assembly techniques. The metal dithiocarbamates were prepared from the primary amine, CS2 and metal chloride. They have been characterized by spectroscopic, TGA/DSC, magnetic susceptibility and conductivity data. The complexes, [Mn2(etdtc)2], [Fe2(etdtc)2], [Co2(etdtc)2], [Zn2(etdtc)2], [Cd2(etdtc)2] and [Hg2(etdtc)2] have been suggested to be tetrahedral while [Ni2(etdtc)2] and [Cu2(etdtc)2] have square-planar geometry. [Cr(etdtc)Cl]2 and [Fe(etdtc)Cl]2 have chlorine bridged distorted-octahedral geometry. It has been observed that the dithiocarbamato moiety is symmetrically bonded in all the cases. A three stage TGA profile is observed for all the complexes leading to the formation of respective metal sulfide as the end-product. The molar conductance of 10-3 mol L-1 solution of the complexes measured in DMSO is indicative of their non-ionic nature.