The excessive consumption of fossil fuels has precipitated a global energy and environmental crisis, propelling the development of green renewable energy materials into a research hotspot. Wood, owing to its multiscale structural designability and renewability, holds significant application potential across various environmental energy harvesting and conversion domains. This paper systematically integrates the functional development and application progress of wood-based energy materials. By examining the mechanisms, structural regulation strategies, and key performance characteristics for harnessing diverse natural energies—including solar thermal, hydropower, mechanical energy, and thermal radiation—it outlines material design approaches for different application scenarios. Through summarizing multi-energy coupling mechanisms, interfacial regulation pathways, and cross-scale structural construction methods, the paper identifies the inherent advantages of wood-based materials in achieving multi-energy conversion. Building upon this foundation, the paper explores the application potential of wood-based energy materials in distributed energy supply, water resource utilization, environmental thermal management, and electrical signal processing. The review concludes by proposing key future development directions for wood-based energy materials, including structural durability, functional integration, and scalable manufacturing, providing guidance for their further application within green energy systems.
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