Biomass-derivates and their applications in renewable energy conversion and storage

More and more people and governments around the world have been trying to pursue a sustainable and low-carbon society, making renewable energy a fiery topic for the scientific research community and public. The most popular and accessible renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, and hydro energy are seasonable, thus limiting their integration to the steady energy grid. To overcome the limitations of seasonality, renewable energy resources must be converted into electricity and/or stored as transportable energy carriers, i.e., chemicals, which can be released if needed. Many devices have been proposed, such as solar cells, batteries, fuel cells, and electrolyzers, to realize the controllable conversions among renewable resources, electrical energies, and chemical energies. Great efforts have been made on the development of key materials such as catalysts and electrodes for these devices. However, the biomass, a rising star as the renewable material, has not gained its due attention. Biomass itself is a typical renewable resource with the inefficient burning as its most traditional utilization approach. Expectantly, the biomass could not only be potentially converted into raw organic materials such as polyols, aldehydes, acids, and sugars for the chemical industry but also derive “renewable” key materials as alternatives to replace the currently scarce catalysts and electrodes for the renewable energy conversion and storage devices. In this perspective, we provide our insights into the biomass-centered renewable energy conversion and storage, emphasizing the promise of biomass in building a sustainable society.