In the introductory part, I presented hydrogels, which have proven to be very useful in a wide variety of fields in recent years. I described how they are divided and delved deeper into a particular group of starting ingredients, namely biopolymers. For each group, I have also given some examples of applications. I have chosen this type of polymer because I believe they are the most suitable for use in biomedical applications, mainly because of their non-toxicity, biodegradability and biocompatibility. Furthermore, in my thesis I have described and explained the most useful crosslinking methods, both physical, where secondary interactions are formed, and chemical, where covalent interactions predominate. Finally, the influence of the crosslinking method on the design of hydrogels useful in biomedical applications, which is one of the key parameters, is presented. The relationship between crosslinking density and some of the most common biomedical applications is also described.
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