Cellulose, biological degradation structure

Chemical structure of cellulose (or regenerated cellulose) is shown in Scheme 1. Other important families of cellulose polymers are the cellulose esters, with the presence of groups such as nitrate, acetate, methyl or ethyl. All these polymers, also called cellophanes, are very sensitive to thermal, chemical and also biological degradation, since cellulose is a polysaccharide. 

Figure 5.1 Basic Structure of Cellulose The aspects of molecular biology of cellulose degradation have...

Compared to starch, natural cellulose is much more crystalline and therefore more difficult to breakdown by any means. Some enzymes can catalyse oxidation reactions of either cellulose itself or the lower molecular weight oligomers produced from the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose (Aubert et al., 1988). By incorporating esters groups in cellulose molecular chains, the crystalline structure of cellulose is disrupted as a result, cellulose esters show much lower crystallinity in comparison with the original cellulose and can be more readily degraded in active biological environments. 

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