>
Spotlight September 2021: Wood, the raw material of the future?
One of the greatest challenges facing humanity is to produce clean drinking water under the given circumstances of global warming, population growth and increasing littering. In September, we would like to present a review article that believes one approach to solve this problem is the use of nanoscale wood. In the review, “Advanced Nanowood Materials for the Water-Energy Nexus,” published in the journal Advanced Materials, methods for using wood for water treatment are outlined based on the structure of wood, bottom up or top down. Using the approaches described, wood can be used for water purification, desalination, or chemical removal.
Many examples are shown of how the basic building block of wood, cellulose (a natural polymer), can be processed into nanofibers or polymer matrices, enabling filtration of ultra-small particles.
In contrast, top-down approaches preserve the fundamental structure of wood. For example, naturally occurring channels and mesopores open up the possibility of binding chemicals or applying catalysts. Research with palladium, titanium dioxide, or iron oxide nanoparticles applied to wood showed very good separation of chemicals from water. By chemically modified wood, it was possible to selectively remove copper ions, separate oils and organic solvents, or filter out heavy metals from water.
Wood is an indispensable, climate-neutral raw material due to its ability to bind CO2. In combination with nanoparticles, it may be possible in the future to extend the versatile properties of wood and thus provide a solution approach to water scarcity and environmental pollution.
Original publication:
Chen, X. et al (2021) Advanced Nanowood Materials for the Water–Energy Nexus. Advanced Materials, 33(28), 2001240. doi.org/10.1002/adma.202001240
Weitere Spotlights
Spotlight May 2023: Dual energy – edible batteries
An Italian research group reports on edible batteries that supply electric current and can be digested as food, thus providing energy a second time. What sounds funny at first has a serious background, because in medicine, power sources are needed that could be transported through the digestive tract and possibly remain in the body unintentionally, […]
Read moreSpotlight June 2022: From small to clever – What does the future hold for the safety and sustainability of advanced materials?
The smallest particles in materials research, nanoparticles, have occupied us intensively for more than 20 years to elucidate and further investigate their safety for humans and the environment. Now, however, the development is going from “small = nano” to “clever = advanced”, as discussed in a contribution by international scientists. Thereby, it is a great […]
Read moreSpotlight December 2022: Fighting tumors with micro robots
When we, the DaNa team as operators of the website nanopartikel.info, write about nanobots, i.e. nanometre-sized machines, we point out that these machines belong to science fiction, may even remain a utopia – i.e. never realisable. On the significantly larger micro-scale, however, small machines are conceivable that could help in the therapy of diseases, e.g. […]
Read moreSpotlight June 2021: Endotoxin – the reason for false-positive toxicity testing for advanced materials?
Advanced materials, but also nanomaterials are closely examined to determine whether they trigger biological effects that could be harmful to humans and the environment before they are used in products. This also includes such materials as titanium dioxide, which has been used in a wide variety of products for more than 50 years. A particularly […]
Read more


