displays high acid stability and excellent uptake for heavy metal ions such as Hg 2+ , Ag + , Cu 2+ , and Pb 2+ . The different maximum adsorption capacities (q m ) for Cu 2+ , Pb 2+ , Hg 2+ , and Ag + depend on the various binding modes arising from the different thiophilicity of these metal ions. The removals of Ag + and Pb 2+ reach >99.6% within 5 min, and for highly toxic Hg 2+ , >98% removal achieves at 1 min. At strong acid limit, the exceptional q m (Ag + ) of 725 mg g −1 places the MoS 4 -Ppy at the top of materials for such removal. Uptake kinetics of Ag + , Hg 2+ , and Pb 2+ is extremely fast: >99.9% removal rates at wide pH range (0.5-6) within 1-5 min. Also, at strongly acidic conditions (pH ≈ 1), for highly toxic Hg 2+ , <2 ppb concentration can be achieved, accepted as safe limit. The MoS 4 -Ppy demonstrates an outstanding ability to separate low-concentrated Ag + from high concentrated Cu 2+ especially under strong acidic conditions (pH ≈ 1), showing a large separation factor SF Ag/Cu (K d Ag /K d Cu ) of 10 5 (>100). MoS 4 -Ppy is a superior and novel sorbent material for water remediation applications as well as precious metals recovery.

The new material Polypyrrole–Mo3S13 (abbr. Mo3S13–Ppy) is a new material prepared by ion-exchange between Ppy-NO3 and (NH4)2Mo3S13. The Mo3S13–Ppy was designed to exhibit strong selectivity for Ag+ and highly toxic Hg2+ in mixtures with other ions. It displays an apparent selectivity ranking of Hg2+ > Ag+ ≥ Co2+, Ni2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, Cd2+, and Pb2+. The strong affinity of Mo3S13–Ppy for Ag+ and Hg2+ was confirmed with extremely high distribution coefficients (K d) (∼107 mL/g) and remarkable removal efficiencies (>99.99%), resulting in <1 ppb concentrations of these ions. Furthermore, Mo3S13–Ppy achieved excellent separation selectivity for Ag+ from Cu2+ (even at a high Cu2+/Ag+ ratio, the molar ratio of 867 and mass ratio of 500) because of the special structure of Mo3S13 2– and its component Mo4+ and (S2)2–. This is promising for the direct extraction of low-grade silver from copper-rich minerals. The maximum Ag uptake capacity of 408 mg/g is redox-based and surprisingly involves the deposition of large, millimeter sized, metallic silver (Ag0) crystals on the surface of Mo3S13–Ppy.

We demonstrate an ew material by intercalating Mo 3 S 13 2À into Mg/Al layered double hydroxide (abbr.Mo 3 S 13 -LDH), exhibiting excellent capture capability for toxicH g 2+ and noble metal silver (Ag). The as-prepared Mo 3 S 13 -LDH displays ultra-high selectivity of Ag + ,H g 2+ and Cu 2+ in the presence of various competitive ions,w ith the order of Ag + > Hg 2+ > Cu 2+ > Pb 2+ ! Co 2+ ,N i 2+ ,Z n 2+ ,C d 2+ .F or Ag + and Hg 2+ ,e xtremely fast adsorption rates ( % 90 %w ithin 10 min, > 99 %i n1h) are observed. Much high selectivity is present for Ag + and Cu 2+ ,e specially for trace amounts of Ag + ( % 1ppm), achieving al arge separation factor (SF Ag/Cu )o f % 8000 at the large Cu/Ag ratio of 520. The overwhelming adsorption capacities for Ag + (q m Ag = 1073 mg g À1 )a nd Hg 2+ (q m Hg = 594 mg g À1 )p lace the Mo 3 S 13 -LDH at the top of performing sorbent materials.M ost importantly,M o 3 S 13 -LDH captures Ag + via two paths:a )f ormation of Ag 2 Sd ue to Ag-S complexation and precipitation, and b) reduction of Ag + to metallic silver (Ag 0 ). The Mo 3 S 13 -LDH is ap romising material to extract low-grade silver from copper-rich minerals and trap highly toxic Hg 2+ from polluted water.

We demonstrate a novel example of a delaminated MoS/OS-LEuH composite (LEuH is layered europium hydroxide, OS is 1-octane sulfonate), which exhibits quenched luminescence in formamide and highly enhanced red emission in the water-present case. The turn-on luminescence sensing capability of the material is promising for feasible detection of a trace amount of water in formamide (FM) and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF).

The organic compound of coumarin-3-carboxylic acid (CCA), deprotonated beforehand by NaOH, and the 1-octane sulfonic acid anion (OS) were co-intercalated into the gallery of the layered europium hydroxide (LEuH) via an ion exchange method. Different molar ratios of CCA/OS and NaOH/CCA gave rise to the composites of CCAOS-LEuH (x = 0.8-1.0) showing different emission intensities. In formamide (FM), all composites were delaminated and the formed colloidal suspensions exhibited enhanced red luminescence of Eu in comparison with the OS-LEuH without CCA. Also, the red emissions of the composites were different from the violet emission (421 nm) of free CCA and blue emission (471 nm) of CCA anions in different deprotonation states. The energy levels of CCA and Eu were analyzed to explain the sensitization effect for Eu luminescence. The fluorescence lifetimes of CCAOS-LEuH-1 : 1, CCAOS-LEuH-1 : 1, CCAOS-LEuH-1 : 2, and CCAOS-LEuH-1 : 2 were determined to be 0.705, 0.704, 0.699 and 0.638 ms, respectively, indicating significantly longer lifetimes. The PL quantum yields of ∼10% demonstrate the excellent luminescence properties of the as-prepared CCAOS-LEuH composites. This is the first report on the sensitized luminescence properties of layer Eu ions in LRH composites in the delaminated state. The intriguing red luminescence of delaminated LEuH composites offers a promising approach to achieve efficient luminescent film materials.