# Flexible Intelligence on a Green Skeleton: Progress and Challenges of CNF-Enabled Multimodal Sensing Platforms

## TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in using cellulose nanofibrils for flexible, eco-friendly sensors and outlines challenges and future directions for their industrial use.

## Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive review of CNF-based sensing platforms, highlighting novel fabrication methods and future design directions.

## Key findings

- CNFs offer a sustainable and versatile scaffold for multimodal sensing applications.
- Recent advances include multiscale conductive networks and dynamic crosslinking to improve sensor performance.
- Challenges remain in scaling up production and integrating CNF-based devices at the industrial level.

## Abstract

Cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) provide a green scaffold for next-generation flexible sensors. They unite abundance, mechanical robustness, biocompatibility, and an easily engineered surface. This review synthesizes advances from the past five years in low-carbon CNF manufacturing. We cover biomass pretreatment, high-solid mechanical fibrillation, and in situ functionalization. We then elucidate mechanisms that govern CNF films, aerogels, and double-network hydrogels used across humidity, temperature, strain/pressure, optical, electrochemical, and biosensing platforms. Particular attention is given to multiscale conductive networks, surface-charge regulation, and reversible dynamic crosslinking. Together, these motifs raise sensitivity, widen the linear response windows, and strengthen environmental tolerance. We interrogate bottlenecks that impede scale-up, including energy demand, batch-to-batch variability, and device-level integration. We also assess prospects for deep-eutectic-solvent recycling, roll-to-roll digital printing, and algorithm-guided structural design. Finally, we outline directions for self-healing and self-powered biomimetic architectures, fully degradable life-cycle design, and integrated “sense–store–compute” nodes. These analyses chart a credible path from laboratory discovery to industrial deployment of CNF-based sensing technologies.