Cellulose

Comprising nearly half of woody plant composition by weight, cellulose is a carbohydrate polymer composed of glucose chains (Miller 1999). Cellulose, comprised of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in the form of starches, proteins, and sugars, is the most abundant organic material on earth. It is isolated during the pulping process and processed to yield ethanol, cellophane, and cellulose ethers such as acetate, rayon, and nitrates. Due to the relatively high manufacturing cost compared to that of petrochemical polymers, many of these derivatives have only specialty applications.

The primary source of wood cellulose pulp comes from conifer species (Smith et al 1994) but over the last twenty years, hardwood utilization has increased. Processing biomass feedstocks always requires attention to cellulose due to its proportion of total volume and weight.

Cellulose