The wonder of wood

There is more to wood than meets the eye as researchers looks to its components for next-generation materials. SINCE THE dawn of recorded time, wood has been at the heart of man's endeavours primarily as a fuel and construction material. Wood is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibres held in a matrix of Lignin. cellulose, a crystalline polymer derived from glucose, is its largest constituent, followed by hemicellulose, a linking of five carbon sugars, all embedded in Lignin, a complex chemical compound.