화학공학소재연구정보센터
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.57, No.40, 13269-13274, 2018
Development of a Nonelectrolytic Selectively Superabsorbent Polymer
Highly absorbent polymers capable of trapping large volumes of organic liquids are attractive materials for cleaning up toxic chemical spills. Here we report development of a homopolymer network using N-butyl-N-phenylacrylamide with poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate as the cross-linker, that absorbs a variety of organic liquids by swelling. The nonelectrolytic basis of this polymer allows it to be used in areas where organic liquids and water coexist in the form of an emulsion. We demonstrate that this new polymer swells up to 20x in nonpolar organic liquids and up to 33x in more polar organic liquids but has negligible swelling in water. Consequently, this novel selectively superabsorbent polymer has potential use in a broad range of applications to capture and remove hazardous materials.