chemical industry
Cellulose
Paper is certainly the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they think of cellulose. Of course that is correct, but it is only a fraction of the actual range of applications for this material.
This natural product has many varied uses in today's society – both in its pure form or as a so-called derivative (a chemically-altered substance with a cellulose base). From a chemical standpoint, cellulose is a polysaccharide; i.e. a cellulose molecule has been assembled into a long chain from many sugar building blocks (specifically: glucose).
Through chemical transformation of the raw cellulose, many additional properties can be attained. Overall, the extraction of cellulose is a complex procedure. An entire series of mechanical and chemical steps are required, first to separate cellulose from the associated natural materials and then to refine it until chemically pure.
For various end applications, cellulose or cellulose derivatives must be further processed by comminution, fine grinding and classification. New product qualities and/or production methods constantly present machine manufacturers with new requirements in terms of achievable final fineness, particle size distribution and the performance of the mechanical process technology.
