Layered double hydroxides: an insight into the role of hydrotalcite-type anionic clays in energy and environmental applications with current progress and recent prospects

Layered double hydroxides are also known as hydrotalcite-like compounds that have emerged as fascinating mineral materials with numerous applications in catalysis, adsorbents, plastic, agriculture, and electronics. These are promising materials that gained significant interest due to their captivated properties, such as ease of preparation, ability to intercalate different types of anions, high thermal stability, high biocompatibility, and easy biodegradation. Moreover, the attractive characteristics including tailored/tuneable acidity and basicity, basal spacing, memory effect, anion exchange capability, and surface area of these minerals have led to increased focus with their application horizons extended to diverse areas of science and technology. The current review sheds light on various rational design strategies related to their production, features, and applications in energy and environment. The review mainly highlights the synthetic design and/or fabrication with other hybrids and their use in broad-spectrum green chemistry and environmental sustainability applications including their use as a catalyst for photoreduction of CO2, biomass conversion into chemicals/fuels, energy-storage system components, corrosion scavenging additives in concrete materials and waste treatments.