Wood is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and extractives.

When we produce wood molasses by auto-hydrolysis we are transforming most of the hemicellulose to sugars.

The hemicellulose sugars are mostly oligosaccharides, while a smaller part are monosaccharides. A monosaccharide is a simple sugar, like mannose, xylose, glucose, galactose, etc. An oligosaccharide is composed of 2 – 10 monosaccharides, while polysaccharides are composed of more than 10 monosaccharides.

In softwood the highest percentage is of mannose, followed by xylose, glucose and galactose. Galactoglucomannan is the most common oligosaccharide in softwood, consisting of galactose, glucose and mannose.

In hardwood the most common sugar is xylose, and the oligosaccharides are mostly xylooligosaccharides.

More information about wood molasses, and about wood chemistry.