acids include acrylic acid methacrylic acid crotonic acid and isocrotonic acid examples of polycarboxylic acids include maleic acid fumaric acid and itaconic acid the foregoing polyacrylates are then dissolved in an aqueous alkali metal hydroxide solution the amount of hydroxide solution employed is sufficient to saponify some of the acrylate esters to alkali metal carboxylates and to neutralize the carboxylic groups of the polyacrylate to alkali metal carboxylates so that the saponified polyacrylate polymer has from 30 to 70 weight percent alkali metal carboxylates the partially saponified polyacrylate polymer is employed as a solution containing from 5 to 60 percent by weight of the polymer a list of applicable polymers which could be prepared from readily available monomers and converted into their salt form is as follows if desired the foregoing polyelectrolytes can also be sulfonated by treatment with sulfur trioxide chlorosulfonic acid or fuming sulfuric acid in an inert organic solvent illustrative examples of the polyfunctional crosslinking agents useful in this invention are set forth in u s pat nos 2 926 154 3 224 986 and 3 332 901 these polyfunctional crosslinking agents are generally known as polyamide polyamine epichlorohydrin adducts the disclosures of these references are incorporated herein by reference similar crosslinking agents are also commercially available from hercules incorporated as kymene 557 and polycup 172 the structure of these adducts has been discussed in an article by m e corr et al journal of applied polymer science vol 17 pages 721 735 1973 illustrative examples of the difunctional agents useful in this invention are polyhaloalkanols such as 1 3 dichloroisopropanol 1 3 dibromoisopropanol sulfonium.