Preparation, assessment, and swelling study of amphiphilic acrylic acid/chitosan-based semi-interpenetrating hydrogels

The aim of this study was to synthesize amphiphilic semi-IPN hydrogels based on acrylic acid (AA) and chitosan (CS) using AIBN as an initiator and N,N'methylene bis acrylamide as a crosslinking agent. The swelling behavior of the hydrogels was evaluated at a variety of pH values, temperature, the salinity of media and time, and the swelling mechanism was investigated using Fickian diffusion and Schott's 2nd-order-kinetics models. FTIR spectroscopy was used to confirm the synthesis of AA/CS hydrogel. The swelling results showed that, in the acidic media, as the CS content increase the hydrogel swelling ratio reduces. It was found that the maximum swelling ratio (8550%) is attained for the sample HAC2 with an AA/CS ratio of 1:0.001 in the alkaline Ph value. It also revealed that the absorption capacity is directly dependent on the temperature and inversely related to the salt concentration. Besides, the absorption capacity of the synthesized hydrogels in the saline solution of Na2SO4 was higher than NaCl.