Ahumada, M., Jacques, E., Calderon, C., & Martínez-Gómez, F. (2019). Porosity in biomaterials: A key factor in the development of applied materials in biomedicine. Handbook of Ecomaterials, 5, 3503-3522. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48281-1_162-1

Abstract: Very often, porosity is the main factor taken into account during the design and synthesis of a material. Many applications can be directly correlated to the porosity of a given material, in uses such as catalysts, absorbents, drug carriers, combustible production, waste management, micro-electronics, medical diagnosis, among others. Three main characteristics describe the catalytic properties of a pore: it allows specific interactions, can be chemically and physically built from scratch to guarantee the best interaction with the target molecule, and its presence exponentially increases the available surface area. In the current chapter, we will focus on porosity in soft materials designed for biomedical applications, specifically hydrogels, giving an overview of their physicochemical behavior and the role of porosity in biomaterial development and characterization.