Extraordinary Swelling of Hydrogels Physically Crosslinked by Megamolecular Chain Sacran.

Physically crosslinked sacran gels were prepared, and the degree of swelling in pure water and in 0.9 wt% NaCl solution was measured. The sacran gel showed anomalous swelling with a degree of swelling of 6100 in pure water and 530 in the saline solution. The degree of swelling varied remarkably by the pH of the pre-gel solution. This high swelling ratio might originate from the large mesh consisting of extremely long chains of sacran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]