Tao Li

Trees are crucial to humankind's survival, releasing the oxygen we breathe, growing the fruits we eat, and supplying wood to build and warm our shelters. Heating wood at 300°C‐800°C with little or no oxygen creates wood biochar, a carbonaceous product. Wood biochar monoliths have a continuous carbon matrix and morphological features that resemble anatomical elements in a tree, including xylem and phloem, which transport water from the root and deliver sugars from leaves to individual cells. Structurally and chemically, monolithic wood biochar belongs to nanoporous carbons (NPCs) consisting of carbon nanotubes arrays and integrated graphene sheets. Researchers have extensively explored NPCs as functional materials for applications essential to sustainability, including electrical energy storage, water purification, and CO₂ capture. However, the lack of scalable manufacturing technology continues to hinder the large‐scale utilization of NPCs despite their demonstrated superiority in enhancing materials performance. Derived from abundant woody biomass with simple processes, wood biochar monoliths offer a new opportunity for overcoming this limitation. This review documents recent progress in applying wood biochar monoliths in areas critical to sustainability, focusing on electrical energy storage and water purification. This progress has revealed the potential of monolith wood biochar as a greener, more cost‐effective, and scalable NPC in enhancing sustainability and opened the door to a new field that is both exciting and relevant. The review concludes with a perspective on the future research direction.

This research prepared an amorphous Co(OH)₂ flexible film on Ti foil using plasma-assisted electrolytic deposition within 3.5 min. Amorphous Co(OH)₂ structure was determined by X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Its areal capacity testing as the binder and adhesive-free anode of a lithium-ion battery shows that the cycling capacity can reach 2000 μAh/cm² and remain at 930 μAh/cm² after 50 charge–discharge cycles, which benefits from the emerging Co(OH)₂ active material and amorphous foamlike structure. The research introduced a new method to synthesize amorphous Co(OH)₂ as the anode in a fast-manufactured low-cost lithium-ion battery.

3D graphene frameworks/Co₃O₄ composites are produced by the thermal explosion method, in which the generation of Co₃O₄ nanoparticles, reduction of graphene oxide, and creation of 3D frameworks are simultaneously completed. The process prevents the agglomeration of Co₃O₄ particles effectively, resulting in monodispersed Co₃O₄ nanoparticles scattered on the 3D graphene frameworks evenly. The prepared 3D graphene frameworks/Co₃O₄ composites used as electrodes for supercapacitor display a definite improvement on electrochemical performance with high specific capacitance (≈1765 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 1 A g⁻¹), good rate performance (≈1266 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 20 A g⁻¹), and excellent stability (≈93% maintenance of specific capacitance at a constant current density of 10 A g⁻¹ after 5000 cycles). In addition, the composites are also employed as nonenzymatic sensors for the electrochemical detection of glucose, which exhibit high sensitivity (122.16 µA mM ⁻¹ cm⁻²) and noteworthy lower detection limit (157 × 10⁻⁹ M, S/N = 3). Therefore, the authors expect that the 3D graphene frameworks/Co₃O₄ composites described here would possess potential applications as the electrode materials in supercapacitors and nonenzymatic detection of glucose.

The use of 5-guanosine monophosphate (GMP) with Sr²⁺ ions to form G-quadruplex bundles as supramolecular templates for the preparation of hierarchical mesoporous silica nanotube materials is reported here, and some mesopores with a diameter of 4–22 nm were obtained. Furthermore, some mesopore channels which run perpendicularly to the center axis of the tube and penetrate right through the outer wall of the nanotubes were achieved by removing the templates. Besides, porous hollow silica spheres were obtained by changing some of the reaction conditions during the process of preparation. Their structures are stable even after high temperature calcination. A formation mechanism was proposed and discussed, and their structures were characterized using a number of means including X-ray diffraction, IR spectra, N₂ adsorption–desorption isotherms, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).