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Many properties of cellulose depend on its chain length or degree of polymerization, the number of glucose units that make up one polymer molecule. Cellulose from wood pulp has typical chain lengths between 300 and 1700 units; cotton and other plant fibers as well as bacterial cellulose have chain lengths ranging from 800 to 10,000 units. [6]
In contrast, each polymer of cellulose comprises 7,000–15,000 glucose molecules. [5] In addition, hemicelluloses may be branched polymers, while cellulose is unbranched. Hemicelluloses are embedded in the cell walls of plants, sometimes in chains that form a 'ground' – they bind with pectin to cellulose to form a network of cross-linked ...
These polysaccharides are also made from multiple subunits of glucose. The difference between cellulose and other complex carbohydrate molecules is how the glucose molecules are linked together. In addition, cellulose is a straight chain polymer, and each cellulose molecule is long and rod-like. This differs from starch, which is a coiled molecule.
Cellulose: Cellulose is very structured with stacked chains that result in stability and strength. The strength and stability comes from the straighter shape of cellulose caused by glucose monomers joined by glycogen bonds. The straight shape allows the molecules to pack closely.
Longer chains of monosaccharides (>2) are not regarded as sugars and are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Starch is a glucose polymer found in plants, the most abundant source of energy in human food. Some other chemical substances, such as ethylene glycol, glycerol and sugar alcohols, may have a sweet taste but are not classified as ...
Cellulosic sugars are derived from non-food biomass (e.g. wood, agricultural residues, municipal solid waste). [1] The biomass is primarily composed of carbohydrate polymers cellulose, hemicellulose, and an aromatic polymer (lignin). The hemicellulose is a polymer of mainly five-carbon sugars C 5 H 10 O 5 .
Amylose consists of a linear chain of several hundred glucose molecules, and Amylopectin is a branched molecule made of several thousand glucose units (every chain of 24–30 glucose units is one unit of Amylopectin). Starches are insoluble in water. They can be digested by breaking the alpha-linkages (glycosidic bonds). Both humans and other ...
The synthesis of bacterial cellulose is a multistep process that involve two main mechanisms: the synthesis of uridine diphosphoglucose (UDPGIc), followed by the polymerization of glucose into long and unbranched chains (the β-1→4 glucan chain) by cellulose synthase. Specifics on the cellulose synthesis has been extensively documented.