Research Progress and Prospect of Stimuli-Responsive Lignin Functional Materials

As the world’s second most abundant renewable natural phenolic polymer after cellulose, lignin is an extremely complex, amorphous, highly cross-linked class of aromatic polyphenolic macromolecules. Due to its special aromatic structure, lignin is considered to be one of the most suitable candidates to replace fossil materials, thus the research on lignin functional materials has received extensive attention. Because lignin has stimuli-sensitive groups such as phenolic hydroxyl, hydroxyl, and carboxyl, the preparation of stimuli-responsive lignin-based functional materials by combining lignin with some stimuli-responsive polymers is a current research hotspot. Therefore, this article will review the research progress of stimuli-responsive lignin-based functional materials in order to guide the subsequent work. Firstly, we elaborate the source and preparation of lignin and various types of lignin pretreatment methods. We then sort out and discuss the preparation of lignin stimulus-responsive functional materials according to different stimuli (pH, light, temperature, ions, etc.). Finally, we further envision the scope and potential value of lignin stimulus-responsive functional materials for applications in actuators, optical coding, optical switches, solar photothermal converters, tissue engineering, and biomedicine.