Hydrogels: Methods of Preparation, Characterisation and Applications

By S. Gulrez, S. Al-Assaf, G. Phillips. 2011

443 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The terms gels and hydrogels are used interchangeably by food and biomaterials scientists to describe polymeric cross-linked network structures. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute cross-linked system, and are categorised principally as weak or strong depending on their flow behaviour in steady-state (Ferry, 1980). Edible gels are used widely in the food industry and mainly refer to gelling polysaccharides (i.e. hydrocolloids) (Phillips & Williams, 2000). The term hydrogel describes three-dimensional network structures obtained from a class of synthetic and/or natural polymers which can absorb and retain significant amount of water (Rosiak & Yoshii, 1999). The hydrogel structure is created by the hydrophilic groups or domains present in a polymeric network upon the hydration in an aqueous environment. This chapter reviews the preparation methods of hydrogels from hydrophilic polymers of synthetic and natural origin with emphasis on water soluble natural biopolymers (hydrocolloids). Recent advances in radiation cross-linking methods for the preparation of hydrogel are particularly addressed. Additionally, methods to characterise these hydrogels and their proposed applications are also reviewed.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Mechanical Engineering, Molecular Medicine

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e022a820e8bd9ff517225e37ab1bc7aff5747598

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Citations in the corpus

• Overview of natural hydrogels for regenerative medicine applications (2019, methodology): “The gelation phenomenon happens when the polymer mixture goes from a sol state to a gel state, this is called sol–gel transition and the gel point can be calculated for each hydrogel using rheological studies [5].”