Dynamic mechanical study of the transition from swollen particles to hydrogel caused by neutralization

Summary

The copolymer of 2-(2-carboxybenzoyloxy)ethyl methacrylate (CEM) with butyl methacrylate (BMA) (BMA/CEM = 40/60 wt.) and terpolymers CEM/BMA/ 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) ((BMA + HEMA)/CEM = 40/60 wt.; HEMA/BMA = 35/5, 30/10, 20/20 and 10/30) were prepared by emulsion radical copolymerization in water in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate and their dynamic mechanical behaviour was investigated as a function of the degree of neutralization α. Main attention was devoted to the transition from swollen particles to physical gel with increasing degree of neutralization and to the structure of formed hydrogels. From the results it followed: (a) the transition from swollen particles to the gel state occurs in a narrow neutralization interval at α∼ 0.45 for BMA/CEM copolymer; increasing the HEMA content shifts the transition to lower α values; (b) with increasing shear strain γ, the hydrogels passed from the gel to liquid state and this transition at the critical strain γ_c, was reversible; (c) junctions in the gel state are probably formed by the hydrophobic interactions of the ends of CEM units which form clusters and the junction concentration is independent of the HEMA content and degree of neutralization α; (d) increasing degree of neutralization α and the HEMA content (increasing polarity of the system) stabilizes the junctions and the critical γ_c values increase; (e) the values of the low-strain storage G′₀ and loss G″₀ moduli together with critical strains γ_c did not depend on angular frequnecy ω in the interval 10⁻¹− 10 rad/s.