Using renewable natural polymer resources to develop functional therapeutics and nanomedicine is a sustainable research area at the interface of multidisciplinary subjects such as green chemistry, polymer science and technology, nanobiomaterial and clinical medicine. It is disclosed that natural polysaccharides and their derivatives exhibited good biocompatibility, promising drug/gene delivery efficiency and immunomodulation capability, which have attracted tremendous attention in recent decades. This article reviewed up to date progresses of various natural polysaccharides and their derivatives as immunomodulators. The impact of molecular factors on immunomodulation-related features were stated, moreover, possible future outlooks on the natural polysaccharide-based immunomodulators were also discussed.

President Kennedy’s dream of obtaining fresh water from seawater seemed has been realized as a great scientific achievement. As Norihito Tambo predicted, seawater reverse osmosis desalination (SWRO) has become a major technology in Middle Eastern countries. SWRO requires less energy compared with the distillation method. Even Middle Eastern countries, where the distillation method is still a major technology, have started to adopt the RO method in new desalination plants in accordance with government policy and following the trend of developing larger (half mega-ton per day and larger) so-called Mega-SWRO plants. With these trends in the global market, the requirements of sustainable SWRO desalination as green desalination for the 21^st century are as follows: (1) conservation of energy resources: renewable energy, (2) innovation of desalination technologies: new advanced membrane and membrane systems, (3) reduction of marine pollution: green desalination. The government-supported Mega-ton water system project has been conducted to solve issues related to (2) and (3). The combination of a low pressure SWRO membrane and a low-pressure, two-stage, and high-recovery SWRO system, also referred to as a SWRO-PRO hybrid system, it has enabled 20% energy reduction and 30% energy saving in total. Likewise, low environmental impact as green desalination has established a reliable operation using less chemical and chemical cleaning. In terms of low-cost renewable energy, in particular, solar energy is now available to solve issues related to renewable energy. By combining these sophisticated technologies, desalinated water has become affordable at $ 0.50/m³ or less (as low as $ 0.28/m³). SWCC has announced their future plans for SWRO. The main topic is directed to brine mining to obtain precious materials from the brine of SWRO. This plan will be connected to water and green hydrogen for a sustainable future.

Phthalide is a common type of functional group in natural products and synthetic motifs, which has a structural feature containing a benzo five-membered lactone ring. Phthalide is also a popular pharmacophore in many bioactive natural products and clinical drugs. This review focuses on chemical synthesis methods of phthalides established in the past ten years.

Amphiphilic 4-(methylthio) benzoic acid (HMBA) combining soft methylthio and hard carboxylic groups was used to construct two isostructural coordination polymers of [Cu(MBA)]_n (CP-1) and [Ag(MBA)]_n (CP-2), and one complex of Cu₂(MBA)₄(CH₃CN)₂·CH₃CN (3). This ditopic HMBA ligand realizes stable coordination of its carboxylic group with low-valent soft Cu⁺ ion (in-situ reduction from Cu²⁺) under the assistance of methylthio groups, forming CPs of CP-1 and CP-2. Meanwhile, based on the theory of hard and soft acid and base (HSAB), harder Cu²⁺ ions (in-situ oxidation from Cu⁺) only coordinate to carboxylic groups, affording a paddle-wheel dinuclear complex 3. These two CPs were also taken for luminescent researches in solid state. CP-1 exhibits single-peak emission at 540 nm while CP-2 emits both at 499 and 528 nm with green luminescence. The emissions of CP-1 and CP-2 are both attributed to ³MLCT (triplet metal-to-ligand charge transfer) excitation state.