Preparation and swelling behaviour of a novel anti-salt superabsorbent hydrogel based on kappa-carrageenan and sodium alginate grafted with polyacrylamide

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Abstract
A novel superabsorbent hydrogel was synthesized via crosslinking graft copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) onto kappa-carrageenan (κC) and sodium alginate (Na-Alg) backbones in a homogeneous solution. Methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) and potassium persulfate (KPS) were applied as water-soluble crosslinker and initiator, respectively. FTIR spectroscopy was used for confirming the structure of the final product. A mechanism for superabsorbent hydrogel formation was also suggested. The parameters affecting the swelling capacity of the synthesized hydrogel, i.e., κC-Alg weight ratio, concentration of AAm, MBA and KPS, as well as reaction temperature were systematically optimized for obtaining maximum absorbency. The swelling capacity of hydrogels was also measured in various salt solutions (LiCl, NaCl, KCl, MgCl2, CaCl2, SrCl2, BaCl2, and AlCl3). Due to their high swelling ability in salt solutions, the hydrogels may be referred to as ‘anti-salt superabsorbent’ polymers. The overall activation energy for the graft copolymerization reaction was found to be 374 kJ/mol. The swelling kinetics of the hydrogels in distilled water and in saline solution (0.9 wt.-% NaCl) was investigated.

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