Cellulose has a ribbon shape which allows it to twist and bend in the direction out of the plane, so that the molecule is moderately flexible.
There is a relatively strong interaction between neighbouring cellulose molecules in dry fibres due to the presence of the hydroxyl (–OH) groups, which stick out from the chain and form intermolecular hydrogen bonds.
Regenerated fibres from cellulose contain 250–500 repeating units per chain (Klemm et al., 2002). This molecular structure gives cellulose its characteristic properties of hydrophilicity, chirality and degradability.
Chemical reactivity is largely a function of the high donor reactivity of the OH groups (Klemm et al., 2005).