The interaction of some selective Cl- and Ncontaining functional crosslinking agents such as epichlorohydrin (ECH), N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBAM), and bifunctional agents such as glutaraldehyde (GA) and glycidylmethacrylate (GM) with dextran (Dx) in aqueous solutions were studied by viscometric and spectroscopic methods. The dynamic viscosities of Dx-crosslinker aqueous solutions have been measured at physiological temperature, 37 degrees C and in the concentration range of 0.220.4 g/dL. Concentration of crosslinkers were kept constant at 0.001-0.35 mol/L. Viscosity behavior of the solutions was interpreted using the Huggins and Kraemer equations. Moreover, the interaction between hydroxyl groups of the Dx with crosslinkers in aqueous solutions, structure properties was also confirmed thereby use of Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. For the Dx/crosslinker systems, the decreasing order of interaction was determined as ECH > GA > MBAM > GM. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.