From both economic and environmental perspectives, adsorption processes are increasingly being utilized to address many aspects of current environmental issues. The approach offers operational flexibility and sustainability. Advanced functional materials such as organic or inorganic composites as adsorbent materials can often be easily regenerated for recycling and selectively recovered and separated with high-added value.

They also present a wide variety of characteristics with unique applications in different fields of environmental applications such as air and wastewater treatment. Structure-activity interactions in functional materials and nanomaterials, as well as adsorption-mediated transformations of materials, are debated topics. There is a need for further research in terms of physicochemical experiments, molecular design, and simulations of hybrid materials. We also need to further investigate the interactions of hybrid materials with adsorptive and reaction media. Moreover, there is a need to research how these easily available and low-price materials have led to versatile materials being used in a wide range of environmental applications.

The aim of this Special Issue is to discuss the role of organic and/or inorganic composites as functional materials in environmental applications. This Special Issue will particularly focus on the fundamental aspects of adsorption, synthesis and characterization of new adsorbents, and surface modification associated selectivity to environmental applications.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Surface characteristics of organic or inorganic adsorbents
• Adsorption mechanisms in environmental fields
• Development of polymeric and/or metal oxide adsorbents
• Cellulosic and/or metal oxides in wastewater treatment
• Carbon and/or metal oxides in environmental applications
• Organic/magnetic oxides in environmental applications
• Selectivity of adsorption for multiple heavy metal ions and other inorganic species
• Computational modelling of adsorption mechanisms within environmental processes
• Hybrid composites for adsorption for air treatment
• Ion exchange resins as adsorbents within the fields of the environment
• Wastewater systems based on hybrid nanocomposites