| abstract |
Substantially water-insoluble, crosslinked polypeptides containing 15 to 85 mole % of amino acid residues such as glutamic acid, aspartic acid, phosphoserine, phosphohomoserine, phosphotyrosine, phosphothreonine, phosphoasparagine, or phosphoglutamine, and 15 to 85 mole % of amino acid residues such as lysine, arginine, asparagine, glutamine, serine or tyrosine, in which the degree of crosslinking is sufficient to result in a substantially water-insoluble polypeptide with the ability to absorb a 1 wt.% aqueous NaCl solution in an amount of at least 20 times the weight of the polypeptide, are useful as superabsorbents in devices such as diapers, etc. Mild alkaline hydrolysis of the crosslinked polypeptides increases their superabsorbency by two to three fold. |