Layered Double Hydroxides (LDHs): Versatile and Powerful Hosts for Different Applications

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs), also known as anionic clays or hydrotalcite-like materials, are a large family of 2D materials constituted by positively charged sheets of hydroxides intercalated by negatively charged anions. In general, the hydrotalcite structures are very robust, with a wide range of possible compositions and so with easily tunable functional properties. In fact, the most appealing aspect of these structures is the easiness to replace the anions usually located into the structure with different species that justify their application in very different fields. In fact, LDHs are used as additives in polymers, in agriculture, for pollution removal, for adsorption of organic wastes or heavy metal ions, in catalysis, photochemistry, electrochemistry and in pharmaceutics as drug delivery [1-4]. Hydrotalcite can be found as natural mineral, but many kinds of low cost and green syntheses are available.