Cellulose

the most abundant natural macromolecular material on earth

shows nontoxic

regenerative

inexpensive

unique structural structures from macro-to molecular scales. The hydrogen bonding endows cellulose porous network structure at nanometer levels. Due to the specific molecular arrangement and multilevel spatial structure

cellulose is widely used as a biological template for controllable preparation of nanomaterials. In this paper

we reviewed the preparation of various functional nanomaterials by using cellulose as template

including oxidate nanomaterials

metal nanomaterials

inorganic compound nanomaterials and other inorganic nanomaterials. We also looked forward to the future research direction of cellulose template controllable functional nanomaterials.