DOI: https://doi.org/10.36347/sjet.2025.v13i08.007

Pages: 673-707

Multifunctional nanomaterials are at the frontier of materials chemistry, having the ability to allow customised property and structure-integrated functionalities to facilitate various applications in energy conversion, environmental remediation, catalysis, biomedical systems and chemical sensing. With sophisticated control of composition, morphology and surface chemistry, extensive families of nanostructures have been designed that satisfy the requirements of a particular application, including metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, carbon-based materials (e.g. graphene and carbon nanotubes), metalorganic frameworks, perovskite materials and hybrid nanocomposites. This familiarization is a critical assessment of recent progress in their synthesis, structure--function relationships and performance of applicability across various disciplines. In spite of the changes that have been achieved, there are still a number of challenges that have not been dealt with. These are gaps in mass manufacturing, lack of long-term stability in its functioning, and combination of numerous functionalities in one system, and toxicity, biodegradability and persistence issues. Responding to these issues, the review proposes the following key future directions, namely sustainable and green synthesis methodologies, machine learning to predict and optimize materials, design of bioinspired multifunctional systems, and standardization of safety and regulatory assessment. This brings together three fields chemistry, nanotechnology, and materials engineering to present a comprehensive view on how to develop and implement next-generation nanomaterials to have a cross-sectoral influence.