The purpose of this study was to prepare a series of pH‐sensitive hydrogels from 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), acrylic acid (AA), and ammonium acrylate, NH4Ac, which was obtained by neutralization of AA with ammonium hydroxide. Hydrogels were prepared by free radical copolymerization in aqueous solution in the presence of redox initiators, Na2S2O8/Na2S2O5, and crosslinker, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate, EGDMA. The copolymers were synthesized by varying AA, EGDMA, and NH4OH concentrations. The effect of pH, temperature, ionic strength, concentration of crosslinker, and AA content on the swelling behavior of the copolymeric gels were investigated. Equilibrium swelling studies, in the pH range of 2–8, were performed to determine the polymer mesh size (ξ), 14.17–127.6 Å, molecular weight between crosslinks (M c ), 324–10229 g/mol, and crosslinking density (q), 0.012–0.366, by using the Flory‐Rehner equation. Copolymeric gels exhibited reversible change in their swelling behaviors in response to cycling pH. The diffusional exponent values (n) of the synthesized hydrogels were found in the range of 0.77–0.80, indicating a non‐Fickian diffusion mechanism. FT‐IR spectral analysis was also performed in order to confirm the formation of copolymer from the bands that appeared as a result of functional groups. It was concluded that these hydrogels demonstrated a sharp change in their water absorbency and mesh size of the networks with a change in the pH of the swelling media, suggesting their strong candidature for being used as oral drug delivery systems and ion‐exchangers for removal of metal ions from aqueous media, owing to the carboxylate groups within the polymeric network.
Swelling Behavior of Poly(2‐hydroxyethyl Methacrylate‐co‐acrylic Acid‐co‐ammonium Acrylate) Hydrogels
Log in via your institution
Log in to Taylor & Francis Online
Restore content access
Restore content access for purchases made as guestPDF download + Online access
- 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
- Article PDF can be downloaded
- Article PDF can be printed
Issue Purchase
- 30 days online access to complete issue
- Article PDFs can be downloaded
- Article PDFs can be printed
Related Research
People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.
Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.
Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.