Book excerpt: This book comprehensively covers iodine, its chemistry, and its role in functional materials, reagents, and compounds. • Provides an up-to-date, detailed overview of iodine chemistry with discussion on elemental aspects: characteristics, properties, iodides, and halogen bonding • Acts as a useful guide for readers to learn how to synthesize complex compounds using iodine reagents or intermediates • Describes traditional and modern processing techniques, such as starch, cupper, blowing out, and ion exchange resin methods • Includes seven detailed sections devoted to the applications of iodine: Characteristics, Production, Synthesis, Biological Applications, Industrial Applications, Bioorganic Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry, and Radioisotopes • Features hot topics in the field, such as hypervalent iodine-mediated cross coupling reactions, agrochemicals, dye sensitized solar cells, and therapeutic agents