9361271 Sachs The goal of this project is to improve the prediction and optimization of the performance of polymer gels in applications in the agricultural, pharmaceutical, and chemical production and purification industries. These improvements will be brought about by increased understanding of transport, flow, and swelling in polymer gels through: (1) elucidation of the physical phenomena fundamental to their behavior; (2) quantification of these phenomena in a mathematical model; and (3) development of an experimentally verified software tool implementing these models. Design and optimization of gel-based technologies could be significantly accelerated by this software. In Phase I, numerical computations based on a prototype model will predict gel swelling and stresses, charge density, solute concentrations, and solute and solvent fluxes. The model will be validated by comparing its predictions with an experiment on release of blue dextrans. ***
