Ionic Nano‐Engineering of Wood Cell Walls for High‐Performance Marine Energy Harvesting

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Abstract

Nanofluidic systems hold great promise for water treatment and blue energy harvesting. However, fabricating natural‐based nanofluidic materials that simultaneously deliver tunable channel orientation, high charge density, and robust mechanical at scale remains challenging. Herein, we demonstrate a wood nanofluidic platform enabled by ionic nano‐engineering of the wood cell wall, involving ionized cell‐wall scaffold reconstruction and in situ nanopolymer polymerization. Periodate oxidation followed by Schiff‐base coupling grafts positively charged ─NH 2 functionalities onto the cellulose skeleton, converting oxidized wood from negatively charged (ζ = −16.5 mV) to positively charged (ζ = +33.5 mV). Subsequent in situ nano‐polymerization rebuilds a 3D gel network within the cell wall, enriching charge density while creating additional nanochannels and interconnecting previously isolated pores. This strategy of structure regulation, interface modification, and functional assembly that overcomes the intrinsic “fiber‐aligned transport” limitation of wood. As a result, the obtained cationic wood membrane (C‐WM) and anionic wood membrane (A‐WM) deliver tensile strengths of 11.7 and 13.1 MPa, respectively, and exhibit high ionic conductivities of 2.24 × 10 −3 and 1.65 × 10 −3 S cm −1 in dilute electrolytes. This sustainable wood ionic membranes offering an appealing strategy for developing high‐performance and environmentally blue energy conversion systems.

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