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This tutorial review could serve as an introduction of cardanol into the world of soft nanomaterials; it is a biobased lipid-mixture obtained from the plant Anacardium occidentale L. Cardanol is a renewable raw material derived from a byproduct of cashew nut processing industry: Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL). Cardanol is a rich mixture of non-isoprenoic phenolic compounds that is a valuable raw material for generating a variety of soft nanomaterials such as nanotubes, nanofibers, gels and surfactants. These nanostructures may then serve as templates for the synthesis of additional nanomaterials. The wealth and diversity of cardanol-derived functional nanomaterials has urged us to present an article that will give readers a taste of a new class of cardanol-derived functional amphiphiles, along with their ability to generate hierarchical functional nanomaterials through non-covalent soft-chemical routes. In this concise review, we discuss selected examples of novel biobased surfactants, glycolipids, and polymers derived from cardanol, and their subsequent self-assembly into functional soft materials.

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Molecular gels, the macroscopic products of a nanoscale bottom-up strategy, have emerged as a promising functional soft material. The prospects of tailoring the architecture of gelator molecules have led to the formation of unique, highly tunable gels for a wide spectrum of applications from medicine to electronics. Biorefinery is a concept that integrates the processes of converting biomass/renewable feedstock and the associated infrastructure used to produce chemicals and materials, which is analogous to petroleum-based refinery. The current review assimilates the successful efforts to demonstrate the prospects of the biorefinery concept for developing new amphiphiles as molecular gelators. Amphiphiles based on naturally available raw materials such as amygdalin, vitamin C, cardanol, arjunolic acid, and trehalose that possess specific functionality were synthesized using biocatalysis and/or chemical synthesis. The hydrogels and organogels obtained from such amphiphiles were conceptually demonstrated for diverse applications including drug-delivery systems and the templated synthesis of hybrid materials.

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Current lithium batteries operate on inorganic insertion compounds to power a diverse range of applications, but recently there is a surging demand to develop environmentally friendly green electrode materials. To develop sustainable and eco-friendly lithium ion batteries, we report reversible lithium ion storage properties of a naturally occurring and abundant organic compound purpurin, which is non-toxic and derived from the plant madder. The carbonyl/hydroxyl groups present in purpurin molecules act as redox centers and reacts electrochemically with Li-ions during the charge/discharge process. The mechanism of lithiation of purpurin is fully elucidated using NMR, UV and FTIR spectral studies. The formation of the most favored six membered binding core of lithium ion with carbonyl groups of purpurin and hydroxyl groups at C-1 and C-4 positions respectively facilitated lithiation process, whereas hydroxyl group at C-2 position remains unaltered.

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Self-assembly is an attractive bottom-up strategy for the development of the next generation of functional soft matter.[1] Molecular gels (MGs) are one class of such soft material that has garnered much attention from scientists in diverse research areas. MGs are solid-like viscoelastic materials comprising a large pool of liquid (water or organic liquid) immobilized by very small amount of nonpolymeric lowmolecular-weight amphiphiles.[2] The solvent-immobilization properties of such amphiphiles stems from their propensity to hierarchically self-assemble at the nanoscale through weak intermolecular interactions to form a microscale threedimensional (3D) network. Within this network, the solvent molecules are entrapped, resulting in the formation of a coherent gel (Scheme 1). Such gels are of particular interest owing to their nonpolymeric nature, gel-to-sol reversibility, ability to form high-aspect-ratio assemblies, and biocompatibility.Through systematic tailoring of the amphiphile structure, the MGs can be imparted with diverse functional properties. Consequently, unlike polymeric gels, MGs have been used as smart materials in a wide spectrum of applications in, for example, drug delivery, energy, food, tribology, and electronics. [3][4][5] Despite these possibilities their practical potential beyond biomedical applications has not been realized until recently. Several factors such as the multistep schemes for gelator synthesis, energy-intensive gelation steps, and low gel strengths have been the principal constraints to the full exploitation of MGs for high-volume industrial applications. However, owing to comprehensive efforts by the gel researchers over the last decade, current research has to overcome the limitations and MGs can be designed efficiently for desired bulk-scale applications.Recently, John and co-workers have developed inexpensive, eco-friendly sugar gelators that can selectively gel the oil phase from an oil-water mixture at room temperature.[6] The use of a room-temperature phase-selective gel system can be a promising approach for the treatment of oil spills. In another interesting application in the catalysis of organic reactions, the catalytic sites are present on the self-assembled network of the MG and in the liquid pool.[7] Utilization of MGs in catalysis facilitates the fine-tuning of catalyst performance, which is otherwise difficult with conventional heterogeneous catalysts. In yet another study, Yamanaka and co-workers developed hydrogels from urea/sugar-conjugated amphiphiles, which could be efficiently employed as the base in gel electrophoresis.[8] Because of the simple extraction process and unique separation pattern possible with such MGs, this new method can replace classical agarose-based gel electrophoresis techniques. Likewise, MGs have been used for developing light-harvesting materials, electronic devices, electrolytic gels for batteries, and many other smart materials. [3][4][5] Interestingly, in more recently published work of Sureshan et al. several limitations of MGs...