Transforming Cellulose for Sustainability: Comprehensive Insights into Modification Approaches and Their Applications

Cellulose, the most abundant natural biopolymer, has attracted significant attention due to its renewability, biodegradability, low toxicity, and specific tensile strength, enabling diverse applications across multiple sectors. Cellulose-based modified products have diverse applications in numerous fields, including pulp and paper, textiles, food, beverage, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and biomedical, energy storage, and environmental remediation. This review provides an in-depth and critical comparative evaluation of physical, biological, and chemical modification techniques, including esterification, etherification, oxidation, graft copolymerization, plasma treatment, ultraviolet treatment, ozone treatment, and enzymatic hydrolysis and highlights their influence on material properties and end-use performance. This transcendental work of literature with profuse illustrations has not been systematically presented in a single individual report in this field. Conclusively, by systematically analyzing the relationship between modification strategies and application-specific requirements, this review establishes a comprehensive roadmap for researchers, industry professionals, and academicians toward sustainable material innovations. Moreover, this work not only shares the in-depth knowledge with industrial relevance but also serves as a vital reference point for advancing next-generation biobased materials with improved performance and future interdisciplinary research in the field.