Biodiesel has attracted more and more attention in recent years because of its biodegradability, environmentally friendliness, and renewability. Contrary to the conventional chemical catalysis method to produce biodiesel, the biochemical catalysis method developed quickly in the past decade and many immobilized enzymes are commercially available to meet the large-scale industrialization of biodiesel. This review is focusing on the current status of biodiesel production by biochemical catalysis method, especially the commercial enzyme and its immobilization for biodiesel production. Consequently, we believe that biochemical catalysis with immobilized enzymes is bound to be an alternative method instead of chemical catalysis in biodiesel production in the near future.

Robust and flexible cellulose sponges were prepared by dual-cross-linking cellulose nanofiber (CNF) with γ-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) and polydopamine (PDA) and used as carriers of metal nanoparticles (NPs), such as palladium (Pd). In situ growth of Pd NPs on the surface of CNF was achieved in the presence of polydopamine (PDA). The modified sponges were characterized with FT-IR, XRD, EDX, SEM, TEM, and TGA. XRD, EDX, and TEM results revealed that the Pd NPs were homogeneously dispersed on the surface of CNF with a narrow size distribution. The catalysts could be successfully applied to heterogeneous Suzuki and Heck cross-coupling reactions. Leaching of Pd was negligible and the catalysts could be conveniently separated from the products and reused.

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The utilization of low-grade and abundant thermal sources based on thermoelectric (TE) materials is crucial for the development of a sustainable society. However, high-performance thermoelectric materials with biodegradable, mass-productive, and low-cost features are rarely reported. Here, from the perspective of sustainable development, natural polymer (bacterial cellulose, BC), and "green" solvent (ionic liquids, ILs) are combined to achieve a transparent, flexible, and robust ionogel (BCIGs) by using a facile and versatile modified co-solvent evaporation method. The proposed BCIGs with 95 wt% 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide ([EMIm][DCA]) can have high tensile strength (3.05 MPa), skin-like mechanical stretchability (40.99%), and obvious adhesivity. The BCIGs are thermally stable up to 250 °C. They also exhibit a high ionic conductivity (2.88 × 10 −2 S cm −1 ), high ionic thermovoltage (18.04 mV K −1 ), and low thermal conductivity (0.21 W m −1 K −1 ), resulting in the great ionic figure of merit (ZT i ) of 1.33 at room temperature. Through the model of mesoscopic confined ion transportation under a thermal gradient, it is attributed the great thermoelectric properties to the synergistic effect between ion-cellulose interaction and ion-ion interaction. Moreover, a flexible ionic thermoelectric capacitor (ITEC) device is also demonstrated, showing the potential of the BCIGs in wearable energy supply.

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