By Ibtisam AbbasiReviewed by Frances BriggsOct 22 2025

From wood chips to wastewater filters, researchers are building a new class of green catalysts, one atom at a time. But will they scale?

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As the chemical industry looks to cut emissions, reduce toxic waste, and decarbonize its core processes, one area under close watch is catalysis.

 Catalysts are the unsung heroes of industrial chemistry, speeding up reactions, saving energy, and lowering production costs. But traditional catalysts often come with heavy environmental baggage: toxic metals, fossil-derived materials, and harsh manufacturing.

Now, scientists are tapping an unlikely source to rethink catalyst design: plants.

Importance of “Green Chemistry” and Sustainable Chemical Reactions

The principles of "Green Chemistry" have been in play for decades as a framework for cleaner, more sustainable manufacturing. Alongside them, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promote using renewable sources, green catalysts, and eco-friendly chemical reactions.²

But replacing entrenched chemical processes is slow work. Catalysts, substances that by definition speed up reactions without being consumed, are central to that effort. The right catalyst can cut energy use, reduce harmful byproducts, and improve overall efficiency.²

However, there's a problem: most industrial catalysts rely on expensive or environmentally harmful materials. That's where biomass-derived catalysts, often made from wood or agricultural waste, might be able to step in. 

These plant-based materials serve as structural supports for metals or metal atoms, driving chemical reactions. Using less harmful materials as scaffolds reduces waste, cost, and toxicity.³ 

Wood-Based Catalysts for Sustainable Fenton-like Green Chemistry Reactions

One application garnering attention for the use of plant-based catalysts is wastewater treatment, specifically in Fenton-like reactions, a process that generates highly reactive species to break down pollutants. 

In a 2024 study in The Journal of Cleaner Production, researchers embedded iron and cobalt nanoparticles into porous carbon derived from poplar wood. The resulting catalyst degraded ciprofloxacin, a common antibiotic pollutant, by 100 % in less than four minutes in controlled lab conditions. Even after multiple reuse cycles, efficiency only dropped slightly to 92 %.⁴ 

Other research is downsizing even further. Single-atom catalysts (SACs), where individual metal atoms are dispersed across a carbon support, have shown exceptional promise.⁵ 

One paper explored SACs constructed from iron, cobalt, and copper atoms on lignin-based supports, and found that pollutant degradation wasn't just about having the right metal. It also depended on the chemical nature of the pollutant itself, specifically its electrophilic index, which determines how readily electrons can transfer.⁵ 

That detail is significant. It means catalysts could one day be tailored for specific pollutants, for water treatment systems with molecular precision.

Continuous Flow Has Continuous Challenges

While most of these catalysts work in batch reactions, industrial water treatment runs continuously. To meet that demand, researchers are experimenting with self-supporting catalytic membranes that can process flowing water. 

A 2025 study from a Chinese research team used thermal shock at 1000 K to fuse cobalt nanoparticles into carbonized wood. They created a flat, durable filter that, when hooked up to a peristaltic pump, removed 99 % of a common dye pollutant. But again, the system was tested on synthetic water in a lab.⁶ 

Real wastewater contains a complex soup of competing ions, organic matter, and unknown material. Added to this mix, plant-based supports can degrade over time. So far, long-term durability, metal leaching, and performance in diverse water types remain open questions.

Future Promise, and Bottlenecks

Renewable, abundant, and potentially less toxic, it's easy to see the appeal of biomass-based catalysts.

Lignin, a natural polymer found in plant cell walls, is particularly attractive as a support material. It's cheap, available at an industrial scale, and can be processed into spheres, hydrogels, or doped carbon structures depending on the need.^7,8

However, working with this abundant material is less simple. Its molecular structure varies widely depending on its source and processing method. This makes it hard to ensure consistency, especially when scaling production. 

While lab results are promising, most studies use high-purity reagents and controlled environments. Moving from petri dish to pilot plant will mean engineering catalysts that can survive fluctuating pH, fouling, and unpredictable pollutant loads. 

Researchers remain optimistic, but cautious. Without real-world testing and life cycle assessments, it's hard to say whether these materials will actually reduce the environmental footprint or just transfer it.¹¹ 

Download your PDF now to learn more about plant-based catalysts!

What Next?

Biomass based catalysts can't replace every industrial process. But they could carve out a role in specific sectors, especially in high-value, low-volume reactions, or in decentralized wastewater treatment systems.

To get there, scientists will need to scale up engineering challenges, map out regulatory routes, and prove long-term durability. Importantly, they'll need to build transparent benchmarks for this class of catalysts to compare against traditional ones, and not just in the lab but also in the real world. 

Further Reading

1. United States Department of Energy (DOE). (2025). DOE Explains...Catalysts. [Online]. Available at: https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainscatalysts [Accessed on: October 03, 2025].
2. Ganesh, K. et al. (2021). Green Chemistry: A Framework for a Sustainable Future. ACS Omega. 6 (25). 16254 - 16258. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c03011
3. Kshirsagar,S. et al. (2024). Green Catalyst For Sustainable Development. Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR). 11(1). ISSN 2349 - 5162. Available at: https://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2401424.pdf
4. Pang, S. et al. (2024). Natural wood-derived charcoal embedded with bimetallic iron/cobalt sites to promote ciprofloxacin degradation. Journal of Cleaner Production. 414. 137569. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137569
5. Guo, J. et al. (2024). Fenton-like activity and pathway modulation via single-atom sites and pollutants comediates the electron transfer process. Environmental Sciences. 121(3). e2313387121. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2313387121
6. Xing, P. et al. (2025). Rapid Synthesis and Recycling of Carbonized Wood Catalyst Decorated with Co Nanoparticles for High-Efficiency Degradation of Rhodamine B. Advanced Functional Materials. 35 (36). 2420933. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202420933
7. Lei, X. et al. (2025). Wood-derived catalysts for green and stable Fenton-like chemistry: From basic mechanisms to catalytic modules and future inspiration. Chinese Chemical Letters. 36. 111550. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cclet.2025.111550
8. Pang, T. et al. (2021). Lignin fractionation: Effective strategy to reduce molecule weight dependent heterogeneity for upgraded lignin valorization. Industrial Crops and Products. 165. 113442. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2021.113442
9. Tan, J. et al. (2023). Efficient activation of peroxydisulfate by a novel magnetic nanocomposite lignin hydrogel for contaminant degradation: Radical and nonradical pathways. Chemical Engineering Journal. 451(1). 138504. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2022.138504
10. Xu, Q. et al. (2024). Structure regulation of lignin-derived N-doped carbon-supported Ni catalyst for efficient upgrading of ethanol to higher alcohols. Chemical Engineering Journal. 489(1). 151092. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2024.151092
11. Pang, T. et al. (2025).  Lignin-based support for metal catalysts: Synthetic strategies, performance boost, and application advances. Coordination Chemistry Reviews. 528. 216426. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccr.2024.216426

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