Determination of Water and Solute Transport in Polyacrylamide Gels

Summary: Water exchange between five polyacrylamide gels (Bulkamid®, Aquamid®, Rectamid®, HV‐PAAG, Acuvue) with a physiological salt solution was determined by means of tritium‐labeled water. Urea and chloride exchange was also determined in Acuvue. The method was a modified version to measure rapid transport processes in red blood cells. The study shows that water and solutes easily exchange between the hydrogel under study and the surrounding medium, independent of the solid polymer content (2.5–40 wt%) and an over ten‐fold variation of the cross‐linking density.