This review provides an overview of the importance of nanoparticles in various fields of science, their classification, synthesis, reinforcements, and applications in numerous areas of interest. Normally nanoparticles are particles having a size of 100 nm or less that would be included in the larger category of nanoparticles. Generally, these materials are either 0-D, 1-D, 2-D, or 3-D. They are classified into groups based on their composition like being organic and inorganic, shapes, and sizes. These nanomaterials are synthesized with the help of top-down bottom and bottom-up methods. In case of plant-based synthesis i.e., the synthesis using plant extracts is non-toxic, making plants the best choice for producing nanoparticles. Several physicochemical characterization techniques are available such as ultraviolet spectrophotometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, the atomic force microscopy, the scanning electron microscopy, the vibrating specimen magnetometer, the superconducting complex optical device, the energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to investigate the nanomaterials. In the meanwhile, there are some challenges associated with the use of nanoparticles, which need to be addressed for the sustainable environment.

The ways of developing functional textiles based on nanomaterials were introduced, and the latest research achievements of nanomaterials in such aspects as flame retardancy, antibacterial, super-hydrophobic, self-cleaning, UV resistance, and anti-static textiles were reviewed. The main technical obstacles to the large-scale application of nanomaterials in functional textiles were pointed out, the possible solutions were discussed, and the development of functional textiles by nanomaterials has been prospected.

The Cu_2–xSe nanoparticles were synthesized by high temperature pyrolysis, modified with aminated polyethylene glycol in aqueous solution and loaded with compound 2,2′–azobis[2–(2–imidazolin–2–yl)propane] dihydrochloride (AIPH). The obtained nanomaterials can induce photothermal effect and use heat to promote the generation of toxic AIPH radicals under the irradiation of near-infrared laser (808 nm), which can effectively kill cancer cells. A series of in vitro experiments can preliminarily prove that Cu_2–xSe–AIPH nanomaterials have strong photothermal conversion ability, good biocompatibility and anticancer properties.

Based on first-principles methods, the authors of this paper investigate spin thermoelectric effects of one-dimensional spin-based devices consisting of zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs), carbon chains and graphene nanoflake. It is found that the spin-down transmission function is suppressed to zero, while the spin-up transmission function is about 0.25. Therefore, an ideal half-metallic property is achieved. In addition, the phonon thermal conductance is obviously smaller than the electronic thermal conductance. Meantime, the spin Seebeck effects are obviously enhanced at the low-temperature regime (about 80K), resulting in the fact that spin thermoelectric figure of merit can reach about 40. Moreover, the spin thermoelectric figure of merit is always larger than the corresponding charge thermoelectric figure of merit. Therefore, the study shows that they can be used to prepare the ideal thermospin devices.

Hospital waste containing antibiotics is toxic to the ecosystem. Ciprofloxacin is one of the essential, widely used antibiotics and is often detected in water bodies and soil. It is vital to treat these medical wastes, which urge new research towards waste management practices in hospital environments themselves. Ultimately minimizes its impact in the ecosystem and prevents the spread of antibiotic resistance. The present study highlights the decomposition of ciprofloxacin using nano-catalytic ZnO materials by reactive oxygen species (ROS) process. The most effective process to treat the residual antibiotics by the photocatalytic degradation mechanism is explored in this paper. The traditional co-precipitation method was used to prepare zinc oxide nanomaterials. The characterization methods, X-Ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Ulraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have done to improve the photocatalytic activity of ZnO materials. The mitigation of ciprofloxacin catalyzed by ZnO nano-photocatalyst was described by pseudo-first-order kinetics and chemical oxygen demand (COD) analysis. In addition, ZnO materials help to prevent bacterial species, S. aureus and E. coli, growth in the environment. This work provides some new insights towards ciprofloxacin degradation in efficient ways.

The semiclassical boron–boron interatomic pair potential is constructed in an integral form allowing its converting into the analytical one. It is an ab initio B–B potential free of any semiempirical adjusting parameters, which would serve as an effective tool for the theoretical characterization of all-boron and boron-rich nanomaterials.