Transfer of Biomatrix/Wood Cell Interactions to Hemicellulose-Based Materials to Control Water Interaction

The family of hemicelluloses stands out as a very promising natural resource that can be utilized as a biobased materials feedstock. An in-depth understanding of the hemicellulose inherent structural and property features as well as the structure-property relationships induced by the specific supramolecular hierarchical organization of lignocellulosic biopolymers will be a key enabling technology in the emerging biorefinery sector. This Review aims to give a perspective on these issues and demonstrate how the transfer of molecular wood cell interactions into hemicellulose-based materials may offer new design principles for material formulations.