Since cellulose is a homopolymer of a glucose derivative, it is a great source of fermentable sugar. Smaller amounts of cellulose when processed under appropriate conditions, can be converted to a wide variety of derivatives, these can be used in manufacture of few commercial products like cellophane and rayon. Īs far as cellulose based products are concerned, paperboard and paper are the most commonly used ones.

Cellulose owes its structural properties to the fact that it can retain a semi-crystalline state of aggregation even in an aqueous environment, which is unusual for a polysaccharide. Cell walls of plant cells attribute their mechanical strength to cellulose. It is a homopolymer of anhydroglucose, with the glucose residues linked in a ß-1,4 fashion. This chapter deals with the chemistry of cellulose, its extraction and its properties which help various industries to make the most of it.Ĭellulose is the most abundant biopolymer available in nature, since it is one of the major components of the cell walls of most of the plants. Currently, about half of the waste produced in India contains about 50% cellulose which can be used productively. Bacterial cellulose’s high dispensability, tasteless and odourless nature provides it with lot of industrial applications. and is an important excipient due to its binding and tableting properties, characterized by its plasticity and cohesiveness when wet. Micro-crystalline cellulose in particular is among the most frequently used cellulose derivatives in the food, cosmetics, pharma industry, etc. Since it is a non-toxic, bio-degradable polymer with high tensile and compressive strength, it has widespread use in various fields such as nanotechnology, pharmaceutical industry, food industry, cosmetics, textile and paper industry, drug-delivery systems in treating cancer and other diseases. There are various extraction procedures for cellulose developed by using different processes like oxidation, etherification and esterification which convert the prepared celluloses in to cellulose derivatives.

It is a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1 → 4) linked d-glucose units.

It is a significant structural component of the primary cell wall of green plants, various forms of algae and oomycetes. Cellulose (C6H10O5)n is one of the most ubiquitous organic polymers on the planet.

Glucose structure download