Natural sponge-like wood-derived aerogel for solar-assisted adsorption and recovery of high-viscous crude oil

•Compressible wood adsorbent with ecological merits for oil-spill collection.•Photothermal effect induced adsorption of high-viscous crude oil pollutants.•Nature derived structure for efficient adsorption and compressible recovery.•Fast photothermal effect as temperature reach up to 88 °C within 100 s under 1 sun.•Potential mechanisms reveal by Computational Fluid Dynamics calculation.