Waste eucalyptus bark could be transformed into a low-cost material for cleaning polluted water, filtering dirty air and capturing carbon dioxide, new research reveals.

The bark can be converted into a highly porous carbon that traps pollutants as water or air flows through it, offering a practical way to turn a common forestry by-product into a useful environmental material, said a statement from Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) released on Tuesday.

Porous carbon materials are already widely used in water filters, air purifiers and industrial gas treatment systems, but many require complex, energy-intensive production, according to the study published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy.

"It is usually treated as low-value waste, but with a simple process we were able to convert it into a highly porous material with strong adsorption performance," said RMIT PhD researcher Pallavi Saini, who led much of the experimental work.

Australia's wide range of eucalyptus species could provide a sustainable feedstock, researchers said, adding that future work will explore species-specific chemical and structural characteristics in collaboration with Indigenous communities.

Potential applications include wastewater treatment, air purification, filtration systems in remote communities and carbon capture technologies, they said.

The research demonstrated how waste materials could be reimagined as part of environmental solutions, said Distinguished Professor Suresh Bhargava, director of the Centre for Advanced Materials and Industrial Chemistry at RMIT, who co-led the study.