I always see shape distortion, cracking and shrinkage whenever I put the lignocellulose hydrogel for freeze-drying just after putting it into a bath of liquid nitrogen
Special drying techniques must be applied to replace the pore liquid with air while maintaining the solid network .....to avoid phase boundaries between the liquid and gas phase during drying is freeze drying. It has been reported that silica aerogels can be produced by replacing the liquid phase by gas phase with only slight shrinkage of the gel.. For more details consult Journal of Nanomaterials. Vol. 2010, Article ID 409310 : https//dx.doi.org/10.1155/2010/409310