Up-recycling of waste wood into value-added room temperature phosphorescent materials

Wei Ming Yin; Ben Dang; Sitong Guo; Min Sun; Yuan Ru Guo; Shouxin Liu; Shujun Li; Jian Li; Tony D. James; Zhijun Chen

doi:10.1038/s41467-025-63431-0

Up-recycling of waste wood into value-added room temperature phosphorescent materials

Wei Ming Yin
, Ben Dang
, Sitong Guo
, Min Sun
, Yuan Ru Guo
, Shouxin Liu
, Shujun Li
, Jian Li
, Tony D. James
, Zhijun Chen

Northeast Forestry University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Up-recycling waste wood as a source for producing materials is crucial for sustainability. Here, we discovered that in situ thermal curing of melamine-formaldehyde resin (MF) with natural wood enhanced its room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) performance. This enhancement is due to the interaction of MF with the components in wood during the in situ thermal curing process, both covalently and non-covalently, promoting RTP emission of holocellulose and lignin in natural wood. With this discovery, we converted waste wood into RTP materials (R-wood@MF) with a lifetime of 332.5 ms at 530 nm via thermal curing of MF in the presence of recycled wood sources. Moreover, due to the robust interaction between MF and wood, the obtained R-wood@MF exhibited water- and organic solvent-tolerant green RTP emission. As a demonstration of the application, R-wood@MF was employed as an anti-counterfeiting glue and multifunctional optical films.

Original language	English
Article number	7978
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	16
Issue number	1
Early online date	26 Aug 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63431-0
Publication status	Published - 31 Dec 2025

Data Availability Statement

All data are included in this article and its Supplementary Information files, including Supplementary Information, Supplementary Movie 1, Supplementary Movie 2 and Supplementary Movie 3. Source data are provided with this paper. All data underlying this study are available from the corresponding author Zhijun Chen upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Funding

Z. C. wishes to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32471803), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2572022CG02). M. S. wishes to thank the National Undergraduates Training Programs of Innovation (Northeast Forestry University, 202310225300). T. D. J. wishes to thank the University of Bath and the Open Research Fund of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Normal University (2020ZD01) for support.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Chemistry
General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
General
General Physics and Astronomy

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Cite this

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abstract = "Up-recycling waste wood as a source for producing materials is crucial for sustainability. Here, we discovered that in situ thermal curing of melamine-formaldehyde resin (MF) with natural wood enhanced its room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) performance. This enhancement is due to the interaction of MF with the components in wood during the in situ thermal curing process, both covalently and non-covalently, promoting RTP emission of holocellulose and lignin in natural wood. With this discovery, we converted waste wood into RTP materials (R-wood@MF) with a lifetime of 332.5 ms at 530 nm via thermal curing of MF in the presence of recycled wood sources. Moreover, due to the robust interaction between MF and wood, the obtained R-wood@MF exhibited water- and organic solvent-tolerant green RTP emission. As a demonstration of the application, R-wood@MF was employed as an anti-counterfeiting glue and multifunctional optical films.",

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AU - Guo, Yuan Ru

AU - Liu, Shouxin

AU - Li, Shujun

AU - Li, Jian

AU - James, Tony D.

AU - Chen, Zhijun

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Up-recycling of waste wood into value-added room temperature phosphorescent materials

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Funding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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