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The complexity of plant cell walls on different hierarchical levels still impedes the detailed understanding of biosynthetic pathways, interferes with processing in industry and finally limits applicability of cellulose materials. While there exist many challenges to readily accessing these hierarchies at (sub-) angström resolution, the development of advanced computational methods has the potential to unravel important questions in this field. Here, we summarize the contributions of molecular dynamics simulations in advancing the understanding of the physico-chemical properties of natural fibres. We aim to present a comprehensive view of the advancements and insights gained from molecular dynamics simulations in the field of carbohydrate polymers research. The review holds immense value as a vital reference for researchers seeking to undertake atomistic simulations of plant cell wall constituents. Its significance extends beyond the realm of molecular modeling and chemistry, as it offers a pathway to develop a more profound comprehension of plant cell wall chemistry, interactions, and behavior. By delving into these fundamental aspects, the review provides invaluable insights into future perspectives for exploration. Researchers within the molecular modeling and carbohydrates community can greatly benefit from this resource, enabling them to make significant strides in unraveling the intricacies of plant cell wall dynamics., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The anisotropic features play indispensable roles in regulating various life activities in different organisms. Increasing efforts have been made to learn and mimic various tissues' intrinsic anisotropic structure or functionality for broad applications in different areas, especially in biomedicine and pharmacy. This paper discusses the strategies for fabricating biomaterials using biopolymers for biomedical applications with the case study analysis. Biopolymers, including different polysaccharides, proteins, and their derivates, that have been confirmed with sound biocompatibility for different biomedical applications are summarized, with a special focus on nanocellulose. Advanced analytical techniques for understanding and characterizing the biopolymer-based anisotropic structures for various biomedical applications are also summarized. Challenges still exist in precisely constructing biopolymers-based biomaterials with anisotropic structures from molecular to macroscopic levels and fitting the dynamic processes in native tissue. It is foreseeable that with the advancement of biopolymers' molecular functionalization, biopolymer building block orientation manipulation strategies, and structural characterization techniques, developing anisotropic biopolymer-based biomaterials for different biomedical applications would significantly contribute to a friendly disease-curing and healthcare experience., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Super adsorbents exhibit great potential to remove pollutants from media or store considerable amounts of water, which may undermine the pressure triggered by environmental pollution and shortage of water resources. Super adsorbents made from biopolymers have been an attractive topic because of biodegradability, renewability and outstanding adsorption capacity. Hemicelluloses are a type of biopolymers very abundant in agricultural, forestry and pulping industrial wastes. Hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents are thriving because the inherent chemical structures and physical properties of hemicelluloses make themselves easy to be processed into matrix materials applicable in super adsorbents. This review summarizes recent studies in hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents, i.e. hydrogels and activated carbons, from the perspectives of types, applications, fabrication methods, the elements affecting the adsorption performance and the kinetics of adsorption process, which thus helps to further improve the properties of hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents and to promote the industrial production and utilization of hemicelluloses and hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

γ-Valerolactone (GVL), a biomass-derived green chemical, offers an environmentally responsible solvent for conversion of lignocellulose to high value-added chemicals. Herein, we report a two-step process for directly producing cellulosic residual, furfural and lignin from Miscanthus × giganteus (M. × giganteus) bypassing the isolation of xylose, which exhibits promising advantage in energy reduction. The optimized pretreatment (100 mM FeCl 3 at 160 °C for 60 min) induced significant xylan removal (98.4%), resulting in rugged fibre surface, thus leading to the peak cellulose conversion of 99.3%. Furfural yield in the second step reached to 76.6% after 100 mM FeCl 3 catalyzed GVL/H 2 O treatment at 180 °C for 10 min without addition of any chemical. The extracted lignin showed representative structure (such as β-O-4', β-β' linkages) and medium molecular weight (4275.5 g/mol). 79.6% of furfural can be recovered by distillation. This study proposes a systematic and energy efficient approach for maximizing biomass utilization., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this work, we study interactions of five different hemicellulose models, i.e. Galactoglucomannan, O-Acetyl-Galactoglucomannan, Fuco-Galacto-Xyloglucan, 4-O-Methylglucuronoxylan, and 4-O-Methylglucuronoarabinoxylan, and their respective binding strength to cellulose nanocrystals by molecular dynamics simulations. Glucuronoarabinoxylan showed the highest free energy of binding, whereas Xyloglucan had the lowest interaction energies amongst the five models. We further performed simulated shear tests and concluded that failure mostly happens at the inter-molecular interaction level within the hemicellulose fraction, rather than at the interface with cellulose. The presence of water molecules seems to have a weakening effect on the interactions of hemicellulose and cellulose, taking up the available hydroxyl groups on the surface of the cellulose for hydrogen bonding. We believe that these studies can shed light on better understanding of plant cell walls, as well as providing evidence on variability of the structures of different plant sources for extractions, purification, and operation of biorefineries., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Bletilla striata polysaccharides (BSPs) are effective for anti-inflammatory, detumescence, and radicals scavenging, with important applications in the area of food chain, pharmacy science, and health care. In this study, we comprehensively studied the interplay between the polysaccharides' formation, physicochemical properties, rheological properties, and associated antioxidant activities of BSPs from different extraction methods. The crude polysaccharides obtained from Bletilla striata by using the hot water extraction (BSPs-H), alkali-assisted extraction (BSPs-A), boiling water extraction (BSPs-B), and ultrasonic-assisted extraction (BSPs-U) methods showed different molecular weights, monosaccharide compositions, glycosidic bond compositions, and zeta potentials, but with the same IR spectra characteristic and thermal stability. By the above-mentioned four kinds of extraction methods, the resultant BSPs exhibited various degrees of reticular and lamellar structure. All the BSPs solutions exhibited shear-thinning behavior with the increase of the shear rate. Among these BSPs, BSPs-A exhibited better DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activities and reducing power, whereas BSPs-H showed better hydroxyl radical scavenging activities., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The increasing amount of electric vehicles on our streets as well as the need to store surplus energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar and tidal parks, has brought small and large scale batteries into the focus of academic and industrial research. While there has been huge progress in performance and cost reduction in the past years, batteries and their components still face several environmental issues including safety, toxicity, recycling and sustainability. In this review, we address these challenges by showcasing the potential of polysaccharide-based compounds and materials used in batteries. This particularly involves their use as electrode binders, separators and gel/solid polymer electrolytes. The review contains a historical section on the different battery technologies, considerations about safety on batteries and requirements of polysaccharide components to be used in different types of battery technologies. The last sections cover opportunities for polysaccharides as well as obstacles that prevent their wider use in battery industry., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Cassava is one of the three major potato crops due to the high starch content in its tubers. Unlike most current studies on the utilization of cassava tubers, our research is mainly focused on the stem of cassava plant. Through nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) and other methods, we found that cassava stalk hemicellulose consists of β-1,4 glycosidic bond-linked xylan backbone with a tetrasaccharide reducing end and decorated with methylated glucuronic acid, acetyl groups and a high degree of arabinose substitutions. Hemicellulose content gradually increased from the upper to the lower parts of the stem. The apical part of cassava stalk contained more branched and heterogeneous glycans than the middle and basal parts, and the molecular weight of hemicellulose increased from top to bottom. Our findings will be helpful in understanding of structural variations of cassava hemicellulose during xylogenesis, as well as in better utilization of cassava plant waste in industry., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Over the last few years, the focus of researchers have been set on enzyme engineering and enzyme immobilization technology using natural polysaccharides as promising and green supporting materials to address the challenges of free enzymes for various applications. Polysaccharides have been extensively implemented as enzyme carriers because they can be easily modified chemically according to the nature of immobilization. This process improves the stability and lifetime of laccase in catalytic reactions. Additionally, the selectivity of the enzymes can be preserved for particular application after immobilization onto polysaccharides. This review paper reveals the significance and potential of natural polysaccharides (including cellulose, chitosan, and alginate) and their composites as support materials for the laccases immobilization to expand the modified biocatalysts for industrial applications. Moreover, the roles of immobilized laccases are discussed from a fundamental point of view to elucidate their catalytic mechanisms as biocatalysts in the detection and degradation of environmental contaminants., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Three-dimensional (3D) printing, known as revolutionary and disruptive innovation in manufacturing technology, supports great opportunities to rapidly construct a wide range of tailored object geometries. Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin as the three most common natural polymers and main components of plant resources, possess great economical potential for bio-based products due to their attractive advantages. The integration of 3D printing technology involved with cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin as the major bio-based feedstock for high-performance 3D printed products has received great concern in the R&D areas. In this review, the aim is to shed light on a cutting-edge review on the most recent progress based on cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, as well as their derivatives as multi-components of bio-feedstock for 3D printing, in which the applications, roles and functions of the plant-derived biomass for 3D printing are also highlighted. The challenges and perspectives for future work are provided, to underscore critical issues and opportunities., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this investigation, a variety of innovative temperature/pH-sensitive hydrogels consisting of hemicellulose (extracted from APMP waste liquor) and acrylic acid/acrylamide monomers were synthesized via free radical polymerization for water retention agents and controlled release. The results showed that the hydrogel polymer was chemically cross-linked and entangled to form a three-dimensional network structure, and the monomer successfully grafted on the hemicellulose chain. The content of crosslinkers and monomers had obvious effects on the swelling ratio of hydrogel. The sensitivity of the hydrogel was determined according to the change of the swelling ratio of the hydrogel under different temperature and pH conditions, combined with the chemical structure analysis of the hydrogel, and explain its sensitivity mechanism. Finally, after 6 days at 25 °C and pH 6, the swelled hydrogel still retained 79.46 % of the moisture, which proved that it has high water retention ability., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The aim of this study was to investigate the physicochemical properties of chitosan (CS) based composite films with the incorporation of hemicelluloses (HC). Films were obtained via direct immersion method and characterized in terms of structural and morphological properties by FT-IR, XRD, XPS, SEM and EDS. By combining with the increased HC loading efficiency (L) and swelling property (S) of films with the increased HC content to 5%, this study proved the increased hydrogen bond interactions between CS and HC. Films with the tensile strength of 32.81 ± 4.97 MPa and elongation at break of 39.63 ± 4.67% were obtained with 3% HC and 20% glycerol (GC). The water vapor permeability (WVP) of films developed with the increased HC and GC contents, while the oxygen permeability (OP) decreased. Moreover, antibacterial testing indicated that all films exhibited the increased growth inhibition against E. coli and S. aureus as increasing TiO 2 content., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Polysaccharides, such as pectin, starch, alginate, carrageenan, and xanthan gum, have been used as biopolymer materials to create coatings and edible films to reduce traditional plastic packages. Petrochemical polymers, extensively used for food packaging, are non-renewable and non-biodegradable and need landfills. Thus, there is a requirement to find alternative packaging materials that are easily degradable and renewable. Natural edible polymers are the materials made from natural edible constituents that can be consumed by animals or human beings with no health risk. Since they are directly consumed with food, nothing is left for disposal. Polysaccharides, Protein and Lipid-Based Natural edible polymers are used to make coatings and edible films surrounding the surface of the food. These natural edible polymers are generally categorized into polysaccharides, lipids and proteins. This review article summarizes the importance of various natural polymers used for making coatings and edible films., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

An alternative transesterification with vinyl laurate (VL) was applied for chemical modification of hemicelluloses (HC) to prepare functional packaging films. Successful transesterification was confirmed by FT-IR and NMR. Semitransparent laurated HC (LHs) films were prepared by solvent casting method. SEM indicated the ordered honeycomb-patterned surface and the dense cross section of LHs films. The LHs films exhibited excellent hydrophobicity with water contact angle about 120° and the enhanced mechanical properties with tensile strength and elongation at break as 33.94 ± 3.09 MPa and 22.41 ± 2.87%, respectively. The water vapor permeability (WVP) and oxygen permeability (OP) values of LHs films ranged from 1.59 ± 0.07 to 2.23 ± 0.11 (10 -10 ·g/m·s·Pa) and 1.21 ± 0.04 to 4.24 ± 0.30 (cm 3 ·μm/m 2 ·d·kPa), respectively. Moreover, the films had acceptable antioxidant activity. In terms of these properties, the shelf life of green chilies could be largely extended to 15 days after packing with LHs films., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin were directly separated from corn stalk, and their liquefaction processes were investigated via acid-catalyzed solvolysis treatment with 1,2-propylene glycol (PG) and diethylene glycol (DEG) to produce bio-oil and residues. The main components, functional groups and organics structure of bio-oil were analyzed by the FTIR, 1 H-NMR, 13 C-NMR, GCMS, and TGA. It was found that there had a similar tendency in the liquefaction processes of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Corn stalk and its biomass components were degraded and formed plentiful low-molecular polymers by acid catalysis, prior to polymers were converted into corresponding PG/DEG-derivatives. Finally, low-molecular weight soluble substances and insoluble residues were generated by decomposition and polymerization. Additionally, more than 80% compounds' carbon number in four bio-oils was below 25. The residues were mostly stemmed from macromolecules produced by degradation products and PG/DEG or re-polymerization between degraded small molecules., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Pre-hydrolysis liquor (PHL) from the kraft-based dissolving pulp process contains large amounts of hemicelluloses, which is usually treated as an effluent and further efforts have to be involved to eliminate the pollution disposal. However, the hemicelluloses-rich PHL is a promising candidate for the production of carbon microspheres via hydrothermal carbonization. The yield of the carbon microspheres directly derived from the hydrothermal carbonization of the hemicelluloses-rich PHL (22.1%) was almost twice than that from xylose (13.1%). Furthermore, sulfuric acid and the lignin in the PHL could significantly improve the yield and change the size of the carbon microspheres obtained from the PHL. Additionally, the activated carbon microspheres functionalized with acrylic acid showed improved adsorption capacities for Pb(II) ion (273.4 mg/g) and methylene blue (701.3 mg/g). The hydrothermal carbonization of the PHL not only utilizes the hemicelluloses in the PHL, but also reduces the pollution load of the PHL significantly., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

3D printing enables the complex or customized structures production in high speed and resolution. However, the lack of bio-based materials with user-defined biochemical and mechanical property is a significant barrier that limits the widespread adoption of 3D printing for products fabrication. Development of eco-friendly natural-derived biopolymers for 3D printing technologies and their promising application in different areas are of huge academic, and environmental interests. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in terms of 3D printing technology using natural-derived feedstocks, including lignocellulose, starch, algae, and chitosan-based biopolymers. Special consideration is given to the development of lignocellulosic materials, i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and their derivatives as 3D printing feedstocks. A strategical development roadmap with identified material property requirements, key challenges, as well as possible solutions was proposed. It serves as guideline aiming to explore natural-derived biopolymers as novel feedstocks for different 3D printing technologies that will be potentially applied in various areas., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The phthalation of bagasse was comparatively investigated with the isolated three main components in 1-allyl-3-methylidazium chloride (AmimCl) to reveal the reaction behavior of bagasse. In the present study, the reaction behavior of hemicelluloses during the homogeneous phthalation was extensively explored. The phthalation degree of hemicellulosic samples ranged from 16.37% to 52.14%. The reaction priority on the main and side chains of hemicelluloses were revealed by the changes of monosaccharide contents upon phthalation. The results indicated that side-chains of hemicelluloses were more easily phthalated than main-chains, and the phthalation of secondary hydroxyl groups on uronic acids was more difficult than that on neutral sugars. 13 C NMR and HSQC analyses suggested the similar reactivity of the secondary hydroxyls at C-2 and C-3 positions in anhydroxylose units. These results provide more detailed understanding of the homogenous modification of lignocellulose., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A feasible approach to produce xylooligosaccharides (XOS) using organic acids as catalysts by microwave-induced hydrolysis of different hemicelluloses was developed. The effects of different acids (oxalic acid, maleic acid, citric acid and sulfuric acid), acid concentration, reaction temperature and reaction time on the hemicelluloses hydrolysis were investigated. Results demonstrated that organic acid was more beneficial to the XOS production than the conventional sulfuric acid. Higher acid concentration, higher reaction temperature and longer reaction time accelerated the further depolymerization of XOS to form monosaccharide. Response surface methodology was employed to optimize the reaction conditions (temperature and time) for the production of XOS from beechwood xylan (BX), corncob hemicelluloses (CH) and recovered hemicelluloses from the industrial waste liquor of dissolving pulp (RH), respectively. The predicted highest XOS yields were achieved to 39.31% (126.54°C-7.95min), 27.29% (120.00°C-0min), 30.32% (122.63°C-15.85min), respectively, being close to the experimental value (39.42%, 27.46% and 30.89%) from BX, CH and RH, indicating the fitted models of XOS yield were in good agreement with the experimental results., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this study, hemicelluloses were isolated from the apical, middle and basal segments of N. cadamba using a 2N KOH extraction procedure. Chemical composition and structural characterization of the three hemicellulosic fractions obtained were comparatively investigated by a combination of HPLC, GPC, FTIR, 1 H, 13 C, HSQC NMR and TGA techniques. According to the sugar analysis and spectral results, (4-O-methyl) glucuronoxylan was the primary hemicellulose identified in the samples with trace levels of mannan also present. All of the three samples showed spherical polymers in 0.005M sodium phosphate solution (containing 0.02N NaCl). Xylan in the middle and basal segment stems had higher molecular weights. Our findings show that during xylogenesis in N. cadamba, changes are observed in xylan content and molecular weight., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The upturn of viscose fiber market has triggered an augmented dissolving pulp usage over the last decade. Dissolving pulp is feasible to obtain from kraft pulp after two essential steps including hemicellulose removal and subsequent pulp activation. Prerequisite of conversion being hemicellulose reduction can be gently done by using xylanase treatment prior to alkali extraction. Herein, the significance of xylanase treatment and the optimum xylanase dose required in conjunction with subsequent alkali extraction was investigated. An increase in xylanase dose prior to alkali extraction had no significant effect on pentosans while the Fock reactivity and viscosity both improved at the dose of 50AXU/g. Also, alkali extraction without xylanase pretreatment resulted in decreased Fock reactivity, alpha cellulose, brightness and viscosity of paper grade pulp. A moderate dose of xylanase prior to alkali extraction can thus be used to facilitate the hemicellulose removal while simultaneously protecting the native structure of cellulose., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In the present study, a graded ethanol precipitation technique was employed to obtain hemicelluloses from the alkali-extracted corncob liquid. The relationship between the structural characteristics of alkali-soluble corncob hemicelluloses and the production of furfural was investigated by a heterogeneous process in a biphasic system. Results showed that alkali-soluble corncob hemicelluloses mainly consisted of glucuronoarabinoxylans and L-arabino-(4-O-methylglucurono)-D-xylans, and the drying way had less influence on the sugar composition, molecular weights and the functional groups of hemicelluloses obtained by the different ethanol concentration precipitation except for the thermal property, the amorphous structure and the ability for the furfural production. Furthermore, alkali-soluble corncob hemicelluloses with higher xylose content, lower branch degree, higher polydispersity and crystallinity contributed to the furfural production. A highest furfural yield of 45.41% with the xylose conversion efficiency of 99.06% and the furfural selectivity of 45.84% was obtained from the oven-dried hemicelluloses precipitated at the 30% (v/v) ethanol concentration., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Adsorption of native eucalyptus heteropolysaccharides onto bleached softwood and hardwood kraft pulps and bleached CTMP was explored in this work to potentially improve the mechanical properties of the final furnish. It was found that adsorption of native heteropolysaccharides onto softwood kraft pulp was slightly higher than hardwood; however, heteropolysaccharides with low arabinose content were preferentially adsorbed onto the hardwood fibers. Adsorption onto CTMP was the lowest, although the general phenomenon of native absorption was rather low under the applied conditions. A strategy to increase the absorption required cationizing the heteropolysaccharides with 2,3-epoxy propyltrimethylamonium chloride that in general significantly increased the overall phenomenon, again with the same general tendencies as observed for the native adsorption., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This work described the morphologic changes of corn stalk and the structural characterization of its hemicelluloses dissolved in yellow liquor at different cooking stages. The results showed that active oxygen cooking process was an efficient method to depolymerize the corn stalk into cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin as a pretreatment of biomass conversion. This cooking process can also be divided into three phases: bulk delignification, extended delignification, and residual delignification. During the heating-up period 57.67% of hemicelluloses and 62.31% of lignin were removed from the raw material. However, only 15% of hemicelluloses and 23.21% of lignin were removed during at temperature' period. The hemicelluloses from the corn stalk and yellow liquor were composed of (1→4)-β-D-xylopyranose backbones substituted with α-l-arabinofuranosyl, 4-O-methyl-α-D-glucuronic acid, and some methoxyl residues. The backbones of hemicelluloses were gradually cleaved during the cooking process. The acetyl groups substituted with xylopyranosyl residues were completely cleaved during the cooking process., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Galactose units of spruce galactoglucomannan (GGM), guar galactomannan (GM), and tamarind (galacto)xyloglucan (XG) were selectively allylated. Firstly aldehyde functionalities were formed at the C-6 position via enzymatic oxidation by galactose oxidase. The formed aldehydes were further derivatized by an indium mediated Barbier-Grignard type reaction, resulting in the formation of homoallylic alcohols. In addition to allylic halides, the same reaction procedure was also applicable for GGM, when using propargyl bromide as halide. All reaction steps were done in water, thus the polysaccharides were modified in a one-pot reaction. The formation of the allylated, or propargylated, product was identified by MALDI-TOF-MS. All polysaccharide products were isolated and further characterized by GC-MS or NMR spectroscopy. By this chemo-enzymatic process, we have demonstrated a novel method for derivatization of GGM and other galactose-containing polysaccharides. The derivatized polysaccharides are potential platforms for further functionalizations., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Novel hydrophobic hemicelluloses possessing hydrophobic groups were prepared by the benzylation of wheat straw hemicelluloses with benzyl chloride under the presence of catalyst in an ethanol/water system. In particular, the progress of the benzylation reaction was studied as a function of the volume ratio of ethanol/water from 4:1 to 6:4, the molar ratio of NaOH/anhydroxylose unit in hemicelluloses from 0.6:1 to 1.5:1, the molar ratio of benzyl chloride/anhydroxylose unit in hemicelluloses from 0.5:1 to 2.0:1, reaction temperature 50-80 °C, and reaction time 4-20 h Benzylated hemicelluloses with the low degree of substitution from 0.09 to 0.35 were obtained depending on the experimental conditions. The incorporation of benzyl groups into the backbone of hemicelluloses was confirmed by FT-IR and (13)C NMR spectroscopies. The thermal stability increased after the modification of hemicelluloses due to the introduction of benzyl groups. The introduction of benzyl groups endows hemicelluloses with the hydrophobicity, which could be potentially applied in plastic industries., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)