Environmental resilience with 2D materials: A futuristic perspective

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have garnered a lot of attention in recent times due to their wide applicability in various areas. These materials exhibit a unique combination of structural and chemical characteristics that have shown promising results and have benefitted almost all the scientific fields including environmental science, engineering, material science, food and agriculture, medical and healthcare, information technology, and many more. These emerging materials have undoubtedly provided new perspectives and solutions to many pressing environmental problems such as the production of clean water through photothermal evaporation, nanosensors to detect the presence of pathogens or toxic materials, and gas-separation devices, to name a few, and hope to continue to do so in the future. Graphene and its derivatives have been the subject of research investigations for the last many years, and the majority of the literature is focused on this 2D material. Other members of the 2D group are less explored and discussed, which generates the literature gap in this field. To fill this knowledge gap, a thorough examination of the environmental applications of some of the recently developed 2D materials - aside from graphene - has been discussed. Although many 2D materials have been extensively discussed by various researchers and are reported in the literature, we have focused on transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), metal oxides, MXenes, and Xenes. Metal oxide-based nanomaterials such as nanosized iron oxides, manganese oxides, titanium oxides, zinc oxides, cerium oxides, magnesium oxides, zirconium oxides, and aluminium oxides are not present in 2D form yet they play a pivotal role in numerous environmental applications. In the present review, authors have tried to summarize the environmental applications, considering the size, structure, and various properties (molecular, optical, electrical, and magnetic) of these nanomaterials. This study also highlights the fascinating potential of these materials to strengthen our surroundings in the face of contemporary challenges, and may also advance the debate by describing likely future breakthroughs as well as obstacles in the search for sustainable and environment friendly technologies.