Polysaccharides II2006
by D. Klemm
As the most important skeletal component in plants and also a substance produced by certain bacteria, polysaccharide cellulose is an almost inexhaustible polymeric raw material with a fascinating structure and interesting properties. The fusion of both carbohydrate and polymer chemistry in a macromolecule biosynthetically composed of repeating glucose units generates surprising specificity and impressively diverse supramolecular/morphological structures, reactivities, and functions. Since the discovery of cellulose by Anselme Payen in 1838, the start of large scale cellulose ester, ether, and ?ber production (which started more than 100 years ago), and the extensive scientific investigations ofcellulose by Hermann Staudinger in 1920, cellulose research and product development have been...