The synthesis of nanocomposite hydrogels is a process that requires specific material and method. These polymers need to be made up of equally spaced out, 30 nm in diameter, clay platelets that can swell and exfoliate in the presence of water. The platelets act as cross-links to modify molecular functions to enable the hydrogels to have superior elasticity and toughness that resembles closely that of biological tissue. Using clay platelets that do not swell or exfoliate in water, using an organic cross-linker such as N,N-methylenebisacrylamide(BIS), mixing of clay and BIS, or preparing nanocomposite hydrogels in a method other than cross-link, will be unsuccessful.
Despite all the specifications, the process of synthesizing nanocomposite hydrogels is simple and because of the flexible nature of the material, these hydrogels can be easily made to come in different shapes such as huge blocks, sheets, thin films, rods, hollow tubes, spheres, bellows and uneven sheets.