Authors : N. Mahmudi, N. Syla, S. Rendevski and F. Aliaj
Abstract: The swelling and mechanical properties of Acrylamide/Methacrylamide (AAm/MAAm) and Acrylamide/Methacrylamide/Methylenebisacrylamide (AAm/MAAm/MBA) hydrogels prepared by radiation induced polymerization has been investigated in this study. The doses of irradiation have been determined to be optimum, corresponding to complete conversion or to control the swelling and mechanical properties of the obtained polymer networks. There was determined the swelling kinetics such as swelling ratio ks, transport s exponent n, diffusion coefficient d and diffusion constant k related to the structure of polymer crosslinked network. The study revealed that different crosslinked networks can be obtained by using different amount of crosslinker MBA which alters the swelling characteristics of the hydrogel. The molecular weight between crosslinks MBA and the effective cross-link Mc density of hydrogels ve were calculated from swelling while shear e modulus data were obtained from compression tests. Stress-strain curves of hydrogels were evaluated to calculate shear modulus values G, the average molecular weight between junctions Mc and the effective crosslink density ve . A comparative analysis between the cross-link density ve or average molecular weight of e e hydrogels by using swelling tests and mechanical measurements has been made. Results have shown that simple compression analyses can be used for the determination of the effective cross-link density of hydrogels ve without the need for some polymer-solvent based parameters as in the case of swelling based e determinations.
N. Mahmudi, N. Syla, S. Rendevski and F. Aliaj, 2018. Swelling and Mechanical Properties of Polyacrylamide Based Hydrogels Prepared by Radiation Induced Polymerization. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 13: 7205-7209.