The possibility to modulate cellulose-based hydrogel sorption properties through the insertion of molecular spacers between the crosslinks was investigated. Starting polymers were the sodium salt of carboxymethyl cellulose, a polyelectrolyte cellulose derivative, and hydroxyethyl cellulose, a nonpolyelectrolyte derivative. Poly(ethylene glycol) with various molecular weights was linked by its free ends at two divinyl sulfone (DVS) crosslinker molecules, to increase the average distance between two crosslinking sites and thus to act as a spacer. Both the effect of the concentration and the molecular weight of the spacer on the hydrogel final sorption properties in water and water solutions were investigated. The presence of the spacer allowed us also to perform hydrogel synthesis with higher concentrations of cellulose in the reactive mixture, and the effect of the polymer concentration in the batch was analyzed. Hydrogels obtained in the presence of spacers displayed significantly higher equilibrium sorption properties than those of the ones obtained without spacers. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.