Turning wood waste into high-value nanocellulose for sustainable agriculture environmental remediation and wound healing applications.

Wood processing industries generate staggering volumes of sawdust and residues. This research created a new way to turn wood waste into valuable resources, solving both environmental problems and agricultural challenges. Through step-by-step valorization pathways, sawdust was reused as a soil enhancer and processed into functional cellulose particles using chemical treatments-alkali digestion, peroxide bleaching, and acid hydrolysis. Characterization tests included: Zeta potential and size, Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and FT-IR. The zeta size showed nanocellulose populations at 95.82 nm and submicron cellulose (412.0 nm), with FT-IR spectroscopy proved they kept their natural structure by showing distinct hydroxyl (3339 cm⁻¹), hydrocarbon (2926 cm⁻¹), and glycosidic bond (1031 cm⁻¹) signatures. Scanning electron microscopy visualized the morphological transition from raw wood shavings to nano/micro-scale cellulose fibrils. This study used wood waste in four applications: water conservation, agriculture enhancement, bioremediation and medical wound healing. Sawdust reveals high water conservation within its particles due to high porosity on its surface. In agronomic trials with barley plant, the soil mixed with cellulose particles (S + C) significantly enhanced root development (11.5 cm) while keeping robust shoot elongation (23.5 cm), though sawdust-enriched soil (S + W) unexpectedly contained the highest leaf protein concentration (149.14 µg/mL). Genetic analysis confirmed all treatments induced low DNA variants, proving genomic safety. The polymorphism percentage from RAPD-PCR was 22.5%, while the polymorphism of SCoT-PCR was 13.7%. The extracted cellulose particles worked well in environmental remediation, reducing synthetic dye concentrations, and accelerated wound healing in cellular models. This work serves to achieve about seven goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to food, health, environment and climatic changes: SDG 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 13 and 15.