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	Svullnad och nedbrytning	GPC/SEC
Ämnesområde	Biomaterial	Biomaterial
Familj	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Ursprungsår	1960	1962
Upphovsperson	Wichterle and Lim	Moore and Debye
Typ	Kinetic assay	Chromatographic analysis
Ursprungskälla	Wichterle, O., & Lim, D. (1960). Hydrophilic gels for biological use. Nature, 185(4706), 117-118.	Striegel, A. M., Yau, W. W., Kirkland, J. J., & Bly, D. D. (2009). Modern size-exclusion liquid chromatography: practice and theory. John Wiley & Sons.
Alias	hydrogel swelling, polymer degradation, mass loss assay	size exclusion chromatography, molecular weight determination, polymer characterization
Närliggande	4	3
Sammanfattning	The swelling and degradation assay measures how biomaterial scaffolds absorb water (swelling) and lose mass over time due to degradation. Developed by Wichterle and Lim in 1960 for hydrogels, the assay is fundamental for characterizing hydrogels, synthetic polymers, and composite scaffolds intended for tissue engineering. The assay provides quantitative data on swelling kinetics (equilibrium water content, swelling ratio), degradation kinetics (mass loss rate, half-life), and mechanisms of degradation (chain scission, enzymatic breakdown).	Gel permeation chromatography (GPC), also known as size exclusion chromatography (SEC), is an analytical technique for determining the molecular weight distribution (MWD) and average molecular weight (Mw, Mn) of polymers. The method separates polymer molecules by their hydrodynamic size as they pass through a porous chromatography column: larger molecules elute first (excluded from pores), while smaller molecules are retained longer. Developed by Moore and colleagues in the 1960s, GPC/SEC is now the standard method for characterizing polymer chains, assessing polymer degradation over time, and verifying batch consistency in biomaterial production.