Abstract
An antibacterial superabsorbent polymer was prepared by graft polymerization of acrylic acid onto tara gum polysaccharide, by adding N,N-dimethyl-N-2-propenyl-2-propen-1-aminium chloride and a polymer with 2-propenamide (polyquaternium-7, PQ7) as an antibacterial agent. The effects of the amount of PQ7 in the hydrogel on its swelling ratio were investigated and maximum swelling ratios of 712 g/g and 68 g/g, in distilled water and 0.9 wt % NaCl solution were attained with 0.5 g PQ7 per gram of tara gum. The superabsorbent hydrogel was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and thermal gravimetric analysis. The results showed that poly (acrylic acid) was successfully grafted onto tara gum and a three-dimensional network structure formed with PQ7 chains penetrated in the networks. The antibacterial properties of these superabsorbent hydrogels against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli improved with increasing PQ7 content. This study demonstrates a method of preparing novel functional superabsorbent hydrogels.
Highlights
Superabsorbent polymers (SAP) are three-dimensional networks of hydrophilic polymers connected by chemical and physical crosslinking that can absorb and retain large volumes of water or saline solution as high as 10–1000 times their own weight [1,2]
To solve the environmental problem which is caused by the non-degradable superabsorbent hydrogels, many researchers have sought to address this environmental problem by preparing superabsorbent hydrogels based on natural materials such as xanthan gum, guar gum, carrageenan and cellulose, and have reported their partial degradation [4,10,11,12,13,14,15]
The superabsorbent hydrogel network of Tara gum (TG)-g-PAA/PQ7 is formed by graft copolymerization of Acrylic acid (AA) monomers onto TG macromolecular chains, followed by the addition of PQ7, in the presence of KPS and N-methylene bisacrylamide (NMBA)
Summary
Superabsorbent polymers (SAP) are three-dimensional networks of hydrophilic polymers connected by chemical and physical crosslinking that can absorb and retain large volumes of water or saline solution as high as 10–1000 times their own weight [1,2]. To solve the environmental problem which is caused by the non-degradable superabsorbent hydrogels, many researchers have sought to address this environmental problem by preparing superabsorbent hydrogels based on natural materials such as xanthan gum, guar gum, carrageenan and cellulose, and have reported their partial degradation [4,10,11,12,13,14,15]. These studies show that graft copolymerization of vinyl monomers onto polysaccharides is an efficient method for the preparation of superabsorbent hydrogels based on natural materials. Yoshimura et al used cotton fiber and succinic anhydride as raw materials to Polymers 2018, 10, 696; doi:10.3390/polym10070696 www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers
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