Yang Liu, Xiaolin Zhang, Yanzhuo Du, Xuebin Du, Ying Zhang, Layun Deng, Cheng Li, Jianhui Guo
As global efforts towards green development intensify, eco-friendly materials have become pivotal to achieving sustainability. Wood, a natural, renewable, and environmentally benign biomass, holds great promise for green material applications due to its abundance and ecological benefits. Recent advances in functional modification techniques—such as oxidation, grafting, and nanoparticle incorporation—have significantly enhanced wood’s physical and chemical properties while introducing new environmental functions. These developments have expanded its applications in pollution control, resource recovery, and environmental restoration. In particular, modified wood exhibits outstanding adsorption capacity for heavy metal ions (Pb2+, Cd2+, Cu2+), offering an efficient and sustainable approach to water pollution remediation. This paper reviews the fundamental structure and properties of wood, summarizes recent progress in the development of functionalized wood for heavy metal ion adsorption, and analyzes the influence of various modification methods on adsorption performance. Finally, it outlines future directions for optimizing wood functionalization technologies, providing theoretical foundations and practical guidance for advancing their applications in wastewater treatment and heavy metal pollution control.