Schwarz and Epple report that the simple heating of sodium chloroacetate results in "highly porous" polyglycolide after water washing to remove NaCl
byproduct, with a pore fraction of about 50% and pore sizes in the micrometer range. This was achieved by gradual heating to 160-180 C, with caution
to avoid an exothermic decomposition that ruins the product.
It is not immediately obvious what the potential applications are, but the ability to simply make a sponge-like product out of a relatively simple
precursor is, at least, rather interesting. I would not recommend using this on any living being since we cannot be sure if there are no contaminants
in the product, but it may have other uses.
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