Advances in Functionalized Materials Research

International audienceDuring the last couple of decades an intensive attention has been given by the scientific communities to the development of a variety of nanomaterials such as inorganic, organic, polymeric, biological, and polymer composites for various applications from biomedical to environmental. Of these, the inorganic ones have been the most investigated as their prop-erties can be changed through functionalization. They can also be made multifunctional with the ability to incorporate broad categories of functions relevant for biomedicine and environment. This special issue is focused on current and expected advances in the area of functionalized nanomaterials. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, researchers from the scientific community were invited to contribute with a broad range of original research articles as well as review articles on the following topics: design and synthesis of functionalized nanomaterials, structural and morphologi-cal characterization of newly functionalized compounds, advanced functionalized materials for biomedical and envi-ronmental applications, and functionalized nanomaterials with magnetic properties. R. V. Ghita et al. reported the synthesis of a new porous nanocomposite material based on tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) coated hydroxyapatite. In their study, the authors have investigated the ability of these new materials to remove Pb 2+ ions from aqueous solutions with different concentra-tion and pH values. Their study showed that the HApTh nanopowders are promising materials for lead ions removal from aqueous solutions with different pH values, being able to be used in the future for depollution of wastewaters. In his work, S. Zhao presents a review which highlights that the multiferroic properties of heterostructured multifer-roic films assembled with clusters prepared by low energy cluster beam deposition can be controlled or improved by tuning the size of the clusters. In his review, he revealed that thin-film heterostructure is not destroyed due to low temperature and energy during LECBD progress, rendering the LECBD technique ideal to prepare multiferroic nanos-tructure for applications on NEMS devices. A. Groza and A. Surmeian evidenced the type of the silicon oxide structures in the PDMS layer deposed on dif-ferent supports in corona discharges using studies performed by reflection-absorption IR spectroscopy coupled with peak fitting. Their study revealed that at high currents (40 íµí¼A) the distribution of silicon oxide structures in the PDMS layer deposed on aluminium is influenced by the anodization of the Al substrate. S. M. Sarkar et al. presented successfully synthesized air and moisture stable SBA-16-supported bis-cinchona alkaloid chiral ligand and demonstrated that SBA-16 silica is an excel-lent support material for the heterogeneous chiral ligands. S. Putdum et al. reported the synthesis of bismuth molybdate (Bi 2 MoO 6) nanoplates using the hydrothermal reaction of bismuth nitrate and sodium molybdate. In their work, the authors have also investigated the effect of the reaction temperature and time of photocatalytic nanoplates on phase, morphology, and photocatalytic properties. Their study revealed that Bi 2 MoO 6 nanoplates synthesized at 180 ∘ C for 5 h exhibit the highest photocatalytic efficiency (over 96%) within 100 min of visible light irradiation