SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF SOME SUPER ABSORBING POLYMERS AND SOME OF THEIR APPLICATIONS

Abstract

It is known that hydrogels are very important class of polymers finding interesting and widespread applications in many fields, such as agriculture, medicine, pharmaceutics, as an adsorbant for the removal of some unwanted agent in environmental applications and many others. In a vast field hydrogels are produced for controlled release of chemicals. Now, they find commercia],. applications as biomedical materials as they can be used as wound dressings under the trade name HDR or AQUE­ GEL.

There are many methods for synthesis of hydrogels, some used ionizing radiation to induce the reaction and others used chemicals to start the polymerization reactions. The synthesis of hydrogels was the subject of extensive studies by many authors.

Aims of the present work are:

!-Synthesis of acrylamide- sodium acrylate copolymers by:

1- y- radiation 2- free radical initiators

11-Complexing of copper, manganese and iron by the prepared hydrogels. lll- Evaluation of some prepared hydrogels on microorganisms.

Part I

1- Preparation of acrylamide-sodium acrylate hydrogels usmg y­

radiation.

Ionization radiation such as gamma radiation is taken as an effective tool for carrying out polymerization reactions. Among the different chemicals, polymeric materials show marked changes when they are subjected to the action of ionizing radiations. These changes are mainly crosslinking or degradation, which results in the formation of products with modified physical and chemical properties.

Hydrogels were prepared by copolymerization of acrylamide with sodium acrylate in the presence of ethanolamines as crosslinking agent by y- radiation at a dose rate of 8.8 Gy/h. Effects of different parameters on the properties of the prepared hydrogels were studied. These parameters include the use of different typeof