There is provided a method for the production of a packaging material comprising a substrate and a gas barrier layer based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH), said method comprising the steps of applying a coating composition of said PVOH dissolved in a first solvent onto said substrate to form a coating subjecting the coating to a first drying step to form a dried PVOH-based coating on said substrate, contacting the dried PVOH-based coating with a crosslinking solution comprising a crosslinking agent in a second solvent, to effect crosslinking of the PVOH-based coating, and subsequent to the contact with the crosslinking solution, subjecting the PVOH-based coating to a second drying step, forming the PVOH-based barrier layer on said substrate, with the proviso that if the crosslinking solution comprises PVOH, the amount of PVOH added by the crosslinking solution is less than 20% (by weight), such as less than 10% (by weight), of the amount of PVOH added by the coating composition.

[Problem] To provide a gel which can be produced in a short time, has controlled properties such as modulus and expansion pressure, and has a low polymer concentration.

[Solution] A process for producing a polymer gel in which gel-precursor clusters have been crosslinked with one another to form a three-dimensional network structure, characterized by comprising a) a step in which monomer or polymer units that are present in a concentration less than a critical gelation concentration are crosslinked to form the gel-precursor clusters, the gel-precursor clusters having a storage modulus G and a loss modulus G which satisfy the relationship G<G, and b) a step in which the gel-precursor clusters are crosslinked with one another by a crosslinking agent to obtain a gel having a three-dimensional network structure.

The present invention is to provide: a photosensitive composition for volume hologram recording and a photosensitive substrate for volume hologram recording, which provide increased sensitivity during hologram recording and a high refractive index modulation amount, and which do not inhibit the decolorization of the sensitizing dye; and a volume hologram recorded medium which provides high-luminance hologram images with increased productivity. Disclosed is a photosensitive composition for volume hologram recording, comprising: a photopolymerizable monomer, a photopolymerization initiator, a sensitizing dye for sensitizing the photopolymerization initiator, a binder resin, and a thiol group-containing compound, wherein the photopolymerizable monomer contains a photoradically polymerizable monomer and a photocationically polymerizable monomer; wherein the thiol group-containing compound is a chain transfer agent for the photoradically polymerizable monomer and is a polyfunctional secondary thiol compound having two or more secondary thiol groups per molecule; and wherein the content of the thiol group-containing compound is 1.5 to 30 parts by mass with respect to 100 parts by mass of the photoradically polymerizable monomer.

A polymer comprises at least one functional group of the formula (I) bound to one of the termini and/or to the backbone of the polymer, or a salt thereof. # indicates the point of attachment to the terminus and/or to the polymer backbone; A is a chemical bond or a divalent moiety selected from the group consisting of C.sub.1-C.sub.6 alkylene, O(C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkylene), C(O)O(C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkylene), NR.sup.3(C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkylene) and C(O)NR.sup.3(C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkylene), where the C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkylene part is attached to Q; Q is a divalent moiety selected from the group consisting of O, NH and S; and X is a divalent moiety selected from the group consisting of linear C.sub.1-C.sub.10 alkylene, linear C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkenylene, C.sub.4-C.sub.7 cycloalkylene, arylene and alkarylene, wherein the linear C.sub.1-C.sub.10 alkylene, the linear C.sub.2-C.sub.6 alkenylene, the C.sub.4-C.sub.7 cycloalkylene, the arylene and the alkarylene may be substituted. ##STR00001##

Water vapor transport membranes for ERV and other water vapor transport applications are provided. The membranes include a substrate and an air impermeable selective layer coated on the substrate, the selective layer including a cellulose derivative and a sulfonated polyaryletherketone. In some embodiments the sulfonated polyaryletherketone is in a cation form and/or the selective layer includes s PEEK and CA in an s PEEK:CA (wt.:wt.) ratio in the range of about 7:3 to 2:3. Methods for making such membranes are provided. The methods include applying a coating solution/dispersion to a substrate and allowing the coating solution/dispersion to dry to form an air impermeable selective layer on the substrate, the coating solution/dispersion including a cellulose derivative and a sulfonated polyarylether ketone. In some embodiments the sulfonated polyaryletherketone is in a cation form and/or the coating solution/dispersion includes s PEEK and CA in an sPEEK:CA (wt.:wt.) ratio in the range of about 7:3 to 2:3.

An object of the present invention is to provide a gel material including a solvophilic polymer having a m-scale porous structure. A polymer gel in which solvophilic polymer units are cross-linked with each other, wherein the polymer gel contains a solvent and has a three-dimensional network structure having two regions: a first region in which the polymer units are densely present and a second region in which the polymer units are sparsely present, and a mesh size composed of the first region is from 1 to 500 m.

Disclosed are an optical film, including: a transparent film, and a coating layer on at least one surface of the transparent film, in which the coating layer is formed using a composition including a polymer resin, a dihydrazide-based crosslinking agent, and water-dispersible fine particles, and a polarizing plate including the same.

A film contains a resin and a siloxane compound having a structure A represented by Formula: [RSiO.sub.1.5].sub.n (provided that in the formula, R represents an organic group and n represents an integer of 2 or more), where at least one R among plural R's in the structure A is a group including an alkyl group and a difference in solubility parameter (SP value) between the resin and the structure A is 3.0 or less in terms of an absolute value, and surface free energy is 40 mJ/m.sup.2 or less.

A film contains a resin and a siloxane compound having a structure A represented by Formula: [RSiO.sub.1.5].sub.n (provided that in the formula, R represents an organic group and n represents an integer of 2 or more), where at least one R among plural R's in the structure A is a group including an alkyl group and a difference in solubility parameter (SP value) between the resin and the structure A is 3.0 or less in terms of an absolute value, and a proportion of the group including the alkyl group in the siloxane compound is 10 mol % or more and 50 mol % or less.