Chapter 27 - Cryogels as smart polymers in biomedical applications

Abstract

Polymeric gels appear as functional polymers frequently used in biotechnology. When biotechnological usage of the polymeric gels was investigated, many areas such as the design of drug transport systems, usage as a column material in biochromatographic separation processes, usage as a scaffold in artificial organ development, sensor technologies, and membrane design in wastewater treatment systems can be considered. Even though polymeric gels have so many research areas, their poor porosity control in the design, observing limited mechanical performance, and slow responses in the systems they are integrated cause the need of synthesizing polymeric gels from a different perspective and thus improve their structure. Cryogelation and cryocopolymerization techniques could overcome those limitations in polymeric gel synthesis. Cryogels that are formed by cryogelation process are smart gels that have interconnected macropores with high rigid and stable polymeric structures. This chapter includes the preparation technique of the cryogels and how the cryogelation technique affects the structure of the gels. The precursors that are used in the cryogel synthesis starting from monomers, monomer mixtures, as well as from polymers and the mechanism of the cryogelation process are reviewed using recent examples from literature. In addition, the applications of cryogels in the biotechnological field were researched. Among these applications, how cryogels are used in biomedical applications and their functions in the biomedical area were investigated in detail.