Hemicellulose Isolation and Its Application in Pharmacy

Polysaccharides are biopolymers commonly found in living organisms and are known to reveal the physiological functions by forming a specific conformation. However, polysaccharide chains are still in their premature state with respect to their structure in solid and in solution. Structural analysis may offer the most fundamental knowledge to understand the functions of polysaccharides, but the diversity and irregularity of polysaccharide chains make it a formidable task. Polysaccharide chains are partly organized but are considered to be mostly amorphous [9]. 

Hemicelluloses are heterogeneous polysaccharides, which are located between the lignin and cellulose fibers. Depending on wood species, hemicelluloses constitute about 20-30% of the naturally occurring lignocellulosic plant biomass [19]. Lignocellulosic biomass represents a renewable, widespread, and 

Handbook of Sustainable Polymers Processing and Applications Edited by Vijay Kumar Thakur and Manju Kumari Thakur Copyright 2016 Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd. 

For thousands of years, nature has provided humankind with a large variety of materials for the most diversified applications for its survival, such as food, energy, medicinal products, protection and defense tools, and others. The pharmaceutical industry has benefitted from such diversity of biomaterials and has exploited the use of natural products as sources of both drugs and excipients [27, 28]. One example of a promising biomaterial for pharmaceutical use is xylan, a hemicellulose largely found in nature, being considered the second most abundant polysaccharide after cellulose [57]. 

The different subtypes of hemicellulose can be grouped into two general categories based on the hydration of the fibers [57]  

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