Water Sorption Behaviors of Novel Biohybrid Hydrogels as Effective Sorbents in Water-Solvent Binary Mixtures

Abstract

Novel sorbent hydrogels containing acrylamide/sodium vinylsulfonate, carboxymethyl cellulose and zeolite were synthesized with free radical solution polymerization by using ammonium persulfate/N,N,N’,N’-tetramethylethyle-nediamine as redox initiating pair in presence of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate as crosslinker. It was to investigate the water uptake properties of series of the novel hydrogels, the semi IPNs and the hybrid/biohybrid composite hydrogel sorbents synthesized in this study. Water uptake studies were performed in water and in water-solvent (acetone, methanol and tetrahydrofuran) binary mixtures at 25°C, gravimetrically. Some swelling and diffusion parameters were calculated and discussed. It has been seen that the lower equilibrium swelling factor values in all solvent compositions in comparison with the equilibrium swelling factor values in water.