Shoomaila Latif

1. Over the past few decades, water pollution has increased to a critical and crucial level, presenting a substantial threat to the sustainability of ecosystems worldwide. The rapid industrial grow...

The ecological impact on food production through innovative and green approaches. These approaches often involve "pollutants amputation," a term that describes removing or mitigating harmful contaminants and waste, ensuring the water used in food systems remains clean, safe, and sustainable (Madhav, 2020) 1In this special issue, the special focus was to search such methods that can help in the protection of our environment as well as can be used for water purification. In this regard, five manuscripts were submitted, out of which one was rejected and four were accepted after revision for final publication. The work presented in this issue gives a solution for the degradation of Methylene blue dye from wastewater by employing Biochar blended with Zinc Oxide and Copper Diphenyl Amine (Aroosh et al.) and Pectin functionalized with Cu/Fe nanoparticles (Faiza et al.). These methods are low-cost as well as eco-friendly. Similarly, waste management for Congo red dye is addressed by using deoiled seeds of citrus plants by enhancing their adsorption potential with nanoparticle loading (Misbah et al.). This method provides an efficient method for large-scale application by using agro-based waste material as adsorbent. A review article was published in this issue which addresses water fertilizers coupling technology for crop yield (Yingying et al.). This review article presents different technologies used comprehensively.In conclusion, the road to sustainable food systems is closely intertwined with the need to protect and manage our water resources. By adopting green approaches that focus on pollutant amputation, we can significantly reduce the water footprint of food systems, safeguard aquatic 1 Madhav, S., Ahamad, A., Singh, A. K., Kushawaha, J., Chauhan, J. S., Sharma, S., Singh, P.(2020). Water pollutants: sources and impact on the environment and human health. Sensors in water pollutants monitoring: Role of material, 43-62. ecosystems, and ensure long-term water sustainability (Kordbacheh, 2023) 2 . It is time for all sectors to align their efforts to make this a reality, creating a more resilient and sustainable future for generations to come. Key words: water pollution, green approach, agricultural waste, dyes.2 Kordbacheh, F., Heidari, G. (2023). Water pollutants and approaches for their removal. Materials Chemistry Horizons, 2(2), 139-153.

Environmental pollution is an emerging issue in the areas of South Asia and the burning of crop residues is one of the major contributors to smog/pollutants production. In recent work, the residues of cotton crop, i.e., cotton calyx (CC), have been converted into a valuable and eco-friendly adsorbent at zero cost for the refining of polluted waters. Furthermore, cotton calyx composite was synthesized with iron oxide (CC-Fe₃O₄) to improve its sorption potential for the mitigation of selected pollutants, i.e., Congo red (CR) dye. By using FTIR, SEM, TGA, and XRD, the newly synthesized biosorbents were characterized. SEM–EDX and FTIR analyses revealed that both biosorbents (CC and CC-Fe₃O₄) have a porous surface along with various functional groups, which is an indication of an ideal adsorbent for the sorptive removal of pollutants like dyes. The effect of the operating parameters (dye concentration, adsorbent dosage, temperature, contact time, and pH of the dye solution) on the sorption efficacy was studied to identify optimal conditions. The highest percentage of CR removal (99%) was achieved in an acidic medium using 0.6 g CC-Fe₃O₄ composite in 60 min at 20 °C. Isothermal modeling of the parameter’s optimization data proved that the Langmuir model (R = 0.97–0.99) is more able to explain the sorption process than Freundlich indicates the monolayer sorption process. Adsorption kinetics professed that pseudo-second-order rate law effectively represented the ongoing adsorption system. The thermodynamic studies revealed that the sorption process was spontaneous at room temperature as ∆H° was negative. The maximal sorption capacity among the sorbents is 20.66 mg g⁻¹ for CC-Fe₃O₄ composite, which is higher than CC. In conclusion, CC-Fe₃O₄ composite proved an efficient biosorbent for the mitigation of CR dye from wastewater. Graphical Abstract

In this work, polymeric microspheres derived from polystyrene-co-methyl methacrylate embedded with magnetic ZnO nanoparticles (poly(styrene-co-MMA)-3MPS-Fe (ZnO)) were synthesized using the suspension polymerization method. The surfaces of polymeric Fe(ZnO) microspheres were improved by functionalization with amino and sulphonate groups. The physicochemical analysis indicated a large number of positively charged (anion exchange) groups (91 mmol/g) on the amine-modified polymeric microsphere (MFZPI) and a large number of negatively charged (cation exchange) groups (90 mmol/g) on the sulphonate-modified polymeric microsphere (SMFZPI)—revealing ambivalent character of obtained sorbent. The characterization of the synthesized compounds using various analytical techniques such as TGA, FTIR, XRD, SEM/EDX, UV-VIS and VSM indicated that synthesized microspheres were thermally stable, semi-crystalline in structure with hollow irregular morphology, optically active in UV region and slightly magnetic in nature. Due to the introduction of groups having ion exchange properties, these modified poly(styrene-co-MMA)-3MPS-Fe(ZnO) microspheres were used for the ion exchange sorptive removal of Cr(III) and fluorescein from aqueous matrix. The equilibrium sorption capacity of Cr(III) was 16.79 mg/g whereas of fluorescein was 12.03 mg/g under optimized conditions. Therefore, SMFZPI was found to be a promising sorbent for both cationic heavy metals and anionic dyes due to the presence of both acidic and basic groups. The mathematical modelling revealed that the sorption phenomenon followed pseudo-second-order kinetics with Freundlich equilibrium isotherm, indicating multilayer chemisorption of the pollutants on the synthesized ion exchange sorbents. This work establishes the utilization of polymeric magnetic ZnO-based ion exchange sorbents to effectively remove harmful toxins from wastewater.