Volume 1 Issue 1 ( March 2014 )

Interpenetrated polymer network (IPN) of gelatin (Glt) and sodium polyalginate (Alg) is studied to prepare Alg gel, which is expected to be more uniform than that prepared directly at high added salt (NaCl) concentrations, C_S. The mixed solution and IPNs are homogeneous at lower C_S. It was found that the mixed solution get phase separated around C_S =0.35M. The gels made from the phase separated solution were also investigated. The roughness of Alg gels prepared via IPN and directly at higher C_S is almost the same. It can be summarized that the phase separation was brought by higher C_S and it is not suitable to prepare uniform Alg gels with higher C_S. It was pointed out that the Alg gels prepared with lower C_S via IPN shows narrower elastic modulus distribution than the higher ones.