Norman Spencer spent his young years believing his mother's story that his father had been an English soldier, killed in World War II. It was only when he went through her papers after her death in 1976 that he realised the truth - his father had been an American GI who had enjoyed a brief affair with his mother before disappearing back to his homeland, leaving her pregnant with the only child she would ever have. This shattering discovery started Norman on the hunt of a lifetime. Only after 34 years of searching official archives and newspaper libraries and making repeated visits to the USA did he finally unearth the sad and extraordinary truth.

Ion exchange materials are extremely effective absorbents generally containing some functional groups with insoluble structures, which have high affinity capacities towards the targets among a series of structurally similar ions or ion groups. In recent decades, the various methods used to preparing the absorbents for contaminant removal and resource recycle from environment have been extensively studied under the backgrounds of environment pollution and resource shortages. Molecular imprinting technology (MIT) was developed rapidly as a research hot topic to prepare ion exchange materials with shape memory effects. In consideration of the advantages of molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs), including high adsorption capacities, high selectivity, easy recycle etc., their applications in the separation and concentration of target molecules or ions have been widely explored. This book briefly narrates the fundamentals and preparations of MIPs, and particularly focus on the research advances relevant to human-living environment including water, atmosphere and soil. An overview of the most important applications of the ion exchange method in the treatment of industrial wastewaters which contain heavy metal ions, and the main environmental benefits of this method are highlighted. The most important ion exchangers used in environment remediation processes, including their classification and environmental utilisations, are presented as well. The influence of operating conditions on the ion exchange process is discussed, both from efficiency and mechanism perspectives. Also, the opportunities and challenges, which make that the ion exchange method to be still an important research issue at international level, are reviewed. Other chapters familiarise the reader with innovative practices to develop sustainable water treatment methods; review the use of adsorption materials, including raw biomasses, and ion exchange resins for the treatment of olive mill wastewater; various examples of selective removal of heavy metal ions discharged in an effluent from electroplating plants, metal finishing operations, as well as mining and electronics industries through ion exchange are presented and finally; the principal mechanisms and specific features of the copper ion exchange in alkali silicate glasses is explored.