Fascinated by a chain molecule review of 35 years' research on cellulose

For over 35 years the author has been involved in cellulose research and his retirement next year is the reason why he has undertaken to present a review on some aspects of his investigations on the fascinating substance cellulose. One topic of his research activities is electron microscopy. At the very start, at the Institute for Cellulose Chemistry (T.H. Darmstadt), observations were made on bordered pits and structural details on the walls of wood and pulp fibres. He was able to continue his teacher's, Georg Jayme's, traditional basic research on cellulose at the Institute for Wood Research (University of Munich) where “dreams” of the fifties and sixties such as the visualization of individual molecules and the growing of macrocrystals of cellulose could be realized. Here, the electron microscope became a vital instrument for the study of cellulose chemistry.