Nowadays, sustainable development has become the consensus of all countries in the world. Reasonable and efficient research and development of renewable biomass energy for reuse has become a hot research topic and direction of major research groups at home and abroad. As a typical biomass renewable resource, nanocellulose has become a good choice in the field of environmental treatment. Meanwhile, nanocellulose based aerogel as the third generation aerogels, has the advantages of high porosity, high specific surface area, low density, low dielectric constant and high absorbability. It has broad application prospects in dye adsorption, oil adsorption, heavy metal ions adsorption, CO2 gas adsorption and other fields. The preparation methods of nanocellulose, the preparation technology of nanocellulose based aerogel and its applications in the field of adsorption are reviewed in this paper. The problems existing in the research and development of nanocellulose based aerogel are discussed, and the future development direction of nanocellulose based aerogel in the field of adsorption is prospected.