der Universität Bayreuth

- Dr. rer. nat.

Macroporous Hydrogels Based On 2-Hydroxyethyl

ion in the presence of soluble substances (sugars, salts) which are washed out from the hydrogel after polymerisation 3--6 . 3. By crosslinking polymerization in the presence of substances liberating gases which remain in the resulting hydrogel 9 . 4. By frost sublimation of the hydrogel swollen in water 10,11 . doi:10.1135/cccc20030812 Using any of these procedures, hydrogels with communicating or noncommunicating pores can be obtained, i.e. the pores are or are not interconnected. In the present work we have chosen procedure No. 2, which enables us to vary the pore size in a wide range. We wished to produce hydrogels with communicating pores, therefore we had to use a relatively large amount of sodium chloride in the polymerization mixture. At the same time we had to use a NaCl/monomer ratio leading to the polymers of suitable mechanical properties. The higher the content of sodium chloride, the more interconnected are the pores, but the poorer is the strength of the resul