Cross-linking of polyvinyl alcohol-g-methionine with bisacrylamide and optimization of its swelling response using taguchi method

Abstract

A hydrophilic macromolecular network is synthesized by crosslinking of grafted polyvinyl alcohol methionine with bisacrylamide (PVAMB). Firstly, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was chemically modified by grafting methionine onto its backbone using persulphate initiator. Secondly, the crosslinking of grafted polymer was carried out using N, N’ - Methylene bisacrylamide. The crosslinked macromolecule was characterized by UV Visible spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction. The thermal behaviour of the crosslinked polymer was analysed using thermogravimetric analyser. The thermal stability of the polymeric network was found to be stable up to 400 °C. To optimize the performance and quality of the synthesized cross-linked polymer, Taguchi L-9 orthogonal array of experiments were designed with the factors such as weight of the hydrogel, pH, time of exposure and temperature using Qualitek-4 software. The studies revealed that PVAMB retains water molecules in their network to a greater extent in neutral solution. Also the swelling behaviour of the cross-linked polymer was investigated in various physiological solutions.