Microwave Assisted Synthesis of Poly (Acrylamide-co-2-Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate)/Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Semi-IPN Hydrogel

In this study, microwave irradiation technique is used to synthesize poly (acrylamide-co-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) /poly(vinyl alcohol) (P(AM-co-HEMA)/PVA (semi-IPN hydrogels, which are separately synthesized by using one-pot polymerization and two-step polymerization techniques. Semi-IPN hydrogels were crosslinked by glutaraldehyde (GA) using ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator. The first step, (P(AM-co-HEMA) network was synthesized in PVA aqueous solution, then followed by glutaraldehyde crosslinking reagent, it formed to semiIPN structured. The presence of function groups in the structure of hydrogel films were confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Swelling behaviors of the hydrogel were measured gravimetrically in distilled water at the temperature of 27 degrees C. The results showed that the hydrogel prepared by one-pot polymerization technique exhibited the highest swelling ratio (the percentage swelling has higher than 900 %), comparing with the hydrogels prepared by two-step polymerization technique. Therefore, the one-pot polymerization is the suitable technique to prepare the P(AM-co-HEMA)/PVA (semi-IPN hydrogels due to less synthesis time and providing acceptable swelling ratio. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd.