Schorger A.W. The Chemistry of Cellulose and Wood

First Edition, Second Impression. — New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc, 1926. — 596 p.It is the aim of this book to cover completely the scientific and empirical data available on the chemistry of wood. This has necessitated the inclusion of cotton cellulose and its modified forms. Industrial processes are treated mainly from the side of the fundamental reactions involved. Perhaps owing to the insufficiency of our knowledge, these reactions receive but scant attention in most technical books. A thorough understanding of them, however, would remove pulping processes, e.g., from the category of an art to that of a science. Many of the problems connected with the utilization of cellulose and wood cannot be solved by chemistry alone, so that there have been included certain chapters from the domain of biological chemistry and colloid science. It is hoped that the usefulness of the book will be increased bythe detailed statement of the conditions under which certain results were obtained. Mere statement of fact would, in the majority of cases, be meaningless. This policy has been pursued, also, for the reason that much of the original literature is difficult of access. Cellulose, in its various forms, is the most abundant organic compound in the plant world and has been used by man since time immemorial. For a century or more, it has inspired cycles of chemical research, of varying intensity, the most pronounced being during the World War. At present, investigation is being pursued by so many workers, and from so many different angles, that it is to be hoped that interest will not flag until the important structural relationships are established. Lack of knowledge of the constitution of cellulose and lignin need occasion neither surprise nor impatience.