Other current areas of applications

There are a variety of other possible applications for microgel particles. Some of the applications have already been achieved (e.g. rheological control additives) whereas many more 

Water-borne polymers are widely used in personal care products and cosmetics as viscosity thickeners. A viscosity thickener is an extremely important raw material for the cosmetic industry because it brings about texture change. An issue inherent in the use of common linear polymers as thickeners is that they create a sticky feeMng. This feature is most likely to be related to the spiimability of the polymer solution. One of the most suitable alternative candidates for cosmetic thickeners is microgels. Spinnability is probably related to the entanglement of polymer chains and therefore, because of their cross-linked structure, microgels are 

Colloidal microgels have attracted considerable attention over the past 10-15 years and many attempts have been made to try to better imderstand the correlation between their structure and resultant properties. As microgels can be prepared in a variety of different 

Antonietti, Angew. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 1988,27,1743. 

and Eimer, W. (1998) Beri Bunsen-Ges Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 102,848. 

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