There are several types of gels, like hydrogel, aerogel, organogel, etc depend on which media you want to fill within. What type of gel you are expecting?

Amount of cross-linking agent (as you mentioned hydrophillic) could affect moisture retention capacity. You can use 3/4 different ratios of cross-liking agent/matrix to evaluate the change in swelling capacity in water and then a plot of moisture retention (%) vs cross-linker ratio will be able to answer one of your question (what extent?). FTIR or other techniques can also be perfomed to see what type of bond created between the matrix/cross-linker and then can find out the effect of moisture on that particular type bond.

@Zakir Hossain Thank you for your answer Sir. Well, I am talking of hydrogels. Normally, we say, that Hydrogel is a crosslinked hydrophilic polymeric network. In my case, I am saying, If there is a hydrophobic polymer being crosslinked by a polymer which has got hydrophilic character. It has got low swelling property inside water. To increase this swelling inside water, Can hydrophilic crosslinker be a decisive factor to initiate such swelling?

Another thing, crosslinking density also play a role in swelling of hydrogel. So, normally, if we increase crosslinking density, swelling is decreased. What you are suggesting, is to increase the ratio of crosslinker to almost 75 percent of polymer ratio. If we proceed with this idea, Can increasing crosslinking density to such extent might help us? Your thoughts on this?

Please see attached some papers attached, which might be able to demonstrate the interaction of hydrophobic-hydrophillic chain involved in hydrogel processing. However, use of high amount of cross-linking agent would not be a good idea in fabricating hydrogel (from my point of view).

Dear Dr. Rashid,

There is a tailored interplay between a hydrophobic skeleton and hydrophilic spacers (crosslinking agents) in hydrogels that is regulated with concentration and molecular nature of both components. Besides, you have to take into account the segmental or/and molecular mobilities which may be constrained. So, I would like to emphasis two principal aspects (structural and dynamic) affected your balance in the polymer network. For each individual pair "polymer-c.agent" it is worth to elaborate the proper set of instruments which could give information on structure-dynamic behavior of gels.

Happy New Year

@Lordanskii Dear Sir, Thank you for the reply. If we consider to take into account these hydrophilic spacers in hydrogels, We have a range of different hydrophilic polymers with varying molar masses, upto thousands ... So, my next question will be, If we increase this molar mass of said polymers, for instance we say, from 500 to 5000, as in PEG ... and we donot increase amount or concentration of theirs ... Will it affect the crosslinking property? OR the overall network structure? If yes, then, if you can please explain the phenomena behind that?

Thank you ...

If you increase the concentration of one of the hydrogels you also increase the cross-link between the polymers which you'll get a high ratio of PEG for example. You have to calculate the amount of polymer based on the type of monomer which include the information about the molecular mass and numbers of hydrogen from this compound. Once you have done the reaction you must confirm the molecular weight by 1H NMR.

You have also to know which type of reaction to produce your hydrogel. There are many options.

Which the purpose of your hydrogel?

This is worth to synthesise because you can play around with the ratio of polymers and molecular mass which affect materials formation.

I hope that I could help you.

Cheers