The pAAm hydrogel – without
ionizable units – exhibits a continuous change in the swelling
ratio over the entire range of ethanol concentrations. On the other
hand, it is well known that S. cerevisiae exhibits alcoholic inhibition
due to osmotic stress under ethanol concentrations higher than 20%
w/v (Ding et al., 2009). Therefore, the collapse will not occur during
a real fermentation run.