Production of Porous Agarose-Based Structures: Freeze-Drying vs. Supercritical CO₂ Drying

In this work, the effect of two processes, i.e., freeze-drying and supercritical CO₂ (SC-CO₂) drying, on the final morphology of agarose-based porous structures, was investigated. The agarose concentration in water was varied from 1 wt% up to 8 wt%. Agarose cryogels were prepared by freeze-drying using two cooling rates: 2.5 °C/min and 0.1 °C/min. A more uniform macroporous structure and a decrease in average pore size were achieved when a fast cooling rate was adopted. When a slower cooling rate was performed instead, cryogels were characterized by a macroporous and heterogenous structure at all of the values of the biopolymer concentration investigated. SC-CO₂ drying led to the production of aerogels characterized by a mesoporous structure, with a specific surface area up to 170 m²/g. Moreover, agarose-based aerogels were solvent-free, and no thermal changes were detected in the samples after processing.