“…Thus far, many kinds of materials have been used for preparing superabsorbents, among them the naturally available resources such as polysaccharides and inorganic clay minerals have shown particular advantages and drawn considerable attention (Ray & Bousmina, 2005). The utilization of low cost, annually renewable and biodegradable polysaccharides for deriving superabsorbents has offered commercial and environmental superiorities (Pourjavadi, Barzegar, & Mahdavinia, 2006;Yoshimura, Uchikoshi, Yoshiura, & Fujioka, 2005), and the incorporation of inorganic clays or their modified products has also improved the performance of the resultant materials and further reduced the production cost . Presently, the natural polysaccharides including starch (Lanthong, Nuisin, & Kiatkamjornwong, 2006;Li, Zhang, & Wang, 2007), cellulose (Suo, Qian, Yao, & Zhang, 2007), chitosan (Chen, Liu, Tan, & Jiang, 2009;Liu, Wang, & Wang, 2007b), alginate (Hua & Wang, 2009;Pourjavadi, Ghasemzadeh, & Soleyman, 2007a) and gelatin (Pourjavadi, Hosseinzadeh, & Sadeghi, 2007b) have been used for deriving superabsorbents, and the resultant materials have also shown potentials as substitutes for existing petroleum-based superabsorbent materials.…”