CO(2)-responsive polyacrylamide microspheres with interpenetrating networks

Meng Mu; Hongyao Yin; Yujun Feng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2017.03.012

CO(2)-responsive polyacrylamide microspheres with interpenetrating networks

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2017 Jul 1:497:249-257. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.03.012. Epub 2017 Mar 2.

Authors

Meng Mu¹, Hongyao Yin², Yujun Feng³

Affiliations

¹ Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
² Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, PR China; Polymer Research Institute, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China.
³ Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, PR China; Polymer Research Institute, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China. Electronic address: yjfeng@scu.edu.cn.

PMID: 28285053
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.03.012

Abstract

Hypothesis: CO₂-responsive microspheres fabricated via co-polymerization protocol are attractive due to their promising applications. However, the inevitable particles-agglomeration restrained their further utilizations. Towards this challenge, interpenetrating network (IPN) protocol would be a potential choice to construct the "intelligent" microspheres, which presents superiority in comparison with co-polymerization mode.

Experiments: A series of CO₂-responsive microspheres with polyacrylamide (PAM)/poly(dimethyl aminopropyl methacrylamide) (PDMAPMA) IPN-structure were fabricated via inverse seed suspension polymerization by adjusting DMAPMA loading and crosslinking-degree of seeds. The resultant particles and responsiveness were examined using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy (OM) and laser particle size analyzer (LS), respectively.

Findings: The interior-structure and fracture-morphology of IPN-particles could be intuitively observed by SEM, showing homogeneous and compact structure without phase separation, offering the direct proof for the formation of IPN-microstructures; the particle morphology altered from IPN to IPN-membrane when gradually increasing DMAPMA concentration. Upon alternating treatment with CO₂ and N₂, these particles experience reversible volume expansion and collapse. Besides, the non-agglomerated responsive particles with varying composition can be prepared by changing the crosslinking-degree of seeds, from which maximum responsiveness, relative swelling volume (RSV), could reach 11.6 when PDMAPMA loading is at 87%.

Keywords: CO(2)-responsiveness; Interpenetrating network; Inverse-suspension polymerization; Microspheres; Polyacrylamide.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't