Cryogels and Their Usages for Bioseparation and Environment

Call for Papers

Life is polymeric in its essence: the most important components of living cell (proteins, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids) are all polymers. Nature uses polymers both for construction and as part of the complicated cell machinery. At present, polymeric gels have many applications in different areas of biotechnology including use as chromatographic materials, carriers for the immobilization of molecules and cells, as electrophoresis matrices and immunodiffusion, and as a gel basis for solid cultural media. A variety of problems associated with using polymer gels, as well as the broad range of biological objects encountered, lead to new, often contradictory, requirements for the gels. These requirements encourage the development of new materials for biological and environmental applications.

The cryogels, cross-linked materials absorbing large amount of water without dissolving, are known as a novel generation of stationary phases in the separation science (i.e., for environment and bioseparation). Cryogels which have several advantages such as large pores, short diffusion path, low pressure drop, and very short residence time for both adsorption and elution are a very good alternative for separaion media. Cryogels (macroporous hydrogels) are prepared in aqueous media (in semifrozen state) where ice crystals build as porogen and a template for macroporous structure after melting. Depending on the gel precursors and chemical reaction used, cryogels with pore sizes from 0.1 to 200 μm can be formed (in general, materials having pores of 50 nm and larger are called macroporous). One of the most attractive features of cryogels is their macroporosity, which is sufficient enough for processing the particulate-containing fluids including biomolecules, crude cell homogenates, wastewater, and so on.

In this special issue, we invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that encourage the understanding of cryogel applications in both bioseparation and environment. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Production of macroporous polymeric materials
• Different morphological characterizations of macroporous polyers
• Production, properties, and charecterizaton of cryogels
• Monolithic macroporous polymers in separation media
• Cryogels having different size and shapes (monolith, beads, membrane, etc.)
• Cryogels in separation of biomolecules
• The usage of cryogels in environment application

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijps/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/ijps/cryo/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Mehmet Odabaşı, Chemistry Department, Aksaray University, 68100 Aksaray, Turkey

Guest Editors

• Hülya Arslan, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, The State University of New Jersey, 610 Taylor Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8087, USA
• Lokman Uzun, Chemistry Department, Hacettepe Universtiy, 06100 Ankara, Turkey
• Müge Andaç, Chemistry Department, Hacettepe Universtiy, 06100 Ankara, Turkey
• Serpil Özkara Yavuz, Chemistry Department, Anadolu University, 26100 Eskişehir, Turkey