Functionalized Wood: A Green Nanoengineering Platform for Sustainable Technologies

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Green Chemistry

Background:

• Wood is an underexplored material with rich physicochemical complexity.
• It is emerging as a renewable platform for green nanotechnologies due to industrialization and carbon imbalance.
• Wood nanotechnology transforms natural wood into programmable substrates with tailored nanoarchitectures, classifying it as a bio-based nanomaterial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically categorize wood-specific nanoengineering strategies.
• To highlight the mechanisms and impacts of these strategies on wood's properties.
• To summarize recent progress in applying functionalized wood to sustainable technologies.

Main Methods:

• Thermal carbonization
• Laser-induced graphenization
• Targeted delignification
• Nanomaterial integration
• Mechanical processing

Main Results:

• Nanoengineering strategies can be combined modularly to reconfigure wood for diverse applications.
• Functionalized wood enables efficient charge transport, selective adsorption, and enhanced light-to-heat conversion.
• Applications include energy storage (batteries, supercapacitors), water treatment (adsorption, filtration), and energy conversion (solar evaporation, thermoelectrics, hydrovoltaics, triboelectric nanogenerators).

Conclusions:

• Nanoengineered wood presents a promising platform for next-generation green energy and environmental systems.
• Challenges include scalable fabrication, material integration, and long-term environmental stability.
• Future research should focus on overcoming these challenges to advance wood-based platforms.