Gels and Their Important Properties:

In everyday language, gel is a familiar name. It denotes to a fairly soft, elastic material that containing water. Within the scientific context, the word obtains a wider meaning. A gel consists of a three dimensional network. The structural material, frequent consisting of cross linked polymers, provides some mechanical stability. The space within the gel not occupied through structural material is filled along with liquid. Liquid occupies the main part of gel. Some gels are soft and deform simply; this being the common picture. Others are rigid or even brittle.

There are several natural substances capable of forming gels and these involve polysaccharides from proteins from animal tissues, fruits and roots, inorganic silicates and phosphates. Here if we look at gels from the chromatographic point of view and also from common properties, there are two different categories of gels could be distinguished. In the macroreticular gels, the microstructure is strongly heterogenous with regions where matrix material is aggregated and regions where there is very little gel matrix present. The gel structure virtually free from gel matrix allows large molecules to enter. The microreticular gels, instead, show properties that the gel matrix is associatively distributed throughout the gel. That fractionates associatively lower molecular mass ranges than the macroreticular gels.