Superabsorbent hydrogels made from bio-sourced butyrolactone monomer in aqueous solution
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Authors
Luk, Sharmaine B.
Kollár, Jozef
Chovancová, Anna
Mrlík, Miroslav
Lacík, Igor
Mosnáček, Jaroslav
Hutchinson, Robin A
Date
2017-10-10
Type
journal article
Language
Keyword
Alternative Title
Abstract
A new water-soluble monomer, sodium 4-hydroxy-4-methyl-2-methylene butanoate (SHMeMB), formed by saponification of the bio-derived monomer γ-methyl-α-methylene-γ-butyrolactone (MeMBL), was copolymerized with acrylamide (AM) in aqueous solution to make superabsorbent hydrogels with equilibrium degree of swelling in the range of 6700–59 000%, depending on monomer ratio and crosslink density. Mechanical strength and storage and loss moduli of the hydrogels were tunable over a wide range through adjustment of the comonomer composition and the crosslinker content. Monomer reactivity ratios of rSHMeMB = 0.12–0.17 and rAM = 0.95–1.10 were determined using copolymer compositions measured at low monomer conversion as well as by applying the integrated form of the Mayo-Lewis equation to fit the drift in comonomer composition with conversion. The reactivity of the SHMeMB : AM system was lower than that of the previously-studied SHMB : AM system, with sodium 4-hydroxy-2-methylene butanoate (SHMB) derived from a similar renewable monomer, α-methylene-γ-butyrolactone (MBL). The differences in reactivity were studied by pulsed laser polymerization coupled with size exclusion chromatography; the comonomer-averaged propagation rate coefficient of the SHMB : AM system was found to be more than double that of SHMeMB : AM, with first estimates for the SHMeMB and SHMB homopropagation rate coefficients of 25 and 165 L mol−1 s−1, respectively, at 60 °C. Despite its lower reactivity, SHMeMB offers advantages over SHMB due to its availability and as superior overall properties of the final hydrogels were achieved.
Description
Final publication available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C7PY01397C
Citation
Luk, S. B., Kollár, J., Chovancová, A., Mrlík, M., Lacík, I., Mosnáček, J., & Hutchinson, R. A. (2017). Superabsorbent hydrogels made from bio-sourced butyrolactone monomer in aqueous solution. Polym. Chem., 8(39), 6039–6049. doi:10.1039/c7py01397c
Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)