Synthesis and Properties of Rosin-Based Composite Acrylamide Hydrogels

Abstract

Hydrogels have been widely applied in agricultural drought-resistance, pollution regulation, drug delivery and so on. Acrylamide (AM) is usually used as raw material to synthesize acrylamide hydrogels. However, inherently low mechanical strength greatly limits their applications in some special areas. Therefore, it is necessary to choose suitable functional monomers to optimize acrylamide hydrogels and improve their mechanical performances. In this paper, a novel acrylamide monomer modified by rosin was synthesized, and then polyacrylamide/rosin-based acrylamide (RAM) composite hydrogels were prepared via free radical polymerization using potassium persulfate as initiator, N, N′-methylene-bisacrylamide (MBA) as a crosslinker. The influence of RAM monomer was investigated in detail. The chemical structure, pore structure, swelling properties, thermal performances and mechanical properties of composite hydrogels were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and universal testing, respectively. The results showed that the thermal stability and mechanical property of RAM hydrogels were improved significantly. The compressive strength of RAM hydrogels was increased to 3.5 times than that of AM hydrogels, and the tensile strength was 5.1 times compared with AM hydrogels as well. Moreover, RAM hydrogels exhibited a faster initial swelling rate due to the new pore structure formed after introducing the RAM monomer.