Ionic-Strength Responsive Zwitterionic Copolymer Hydrogels with Tunable Swelling and Adsorption Behaviors

Tao Xiang; Ting Lu; Wei-Feng Zhao; Cheng-Sheng Zhao

doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01719

Ionic-Strength Responsive Zwitterionic Copolymer Hydrogels with Tunable Swelling and Adsorption Behaviors

Langmuir. 2019 Feb 5;35(5):1146-1155. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01719. Epub 2018 Aug 28.

Authors

Tao Xiang^{1

2}, Ting Lu³, Wei-Feng Zhao⁴, Cheng-Sheng Zhao⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering , Southwest Jiaotong University , Chengdu 610031 , China.
² State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers , Fudan University , Shanghai 200433 , China.
³ National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials , Sichuan University , Chengdu 610064 , China.
⁴ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering , Sichuan University , Chengdu 610065 , China.

PMID: 30107735
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01719

Abstract

In this work, we studied the swelling behavior and adsorption behavior of zwitterionic copolymer hydrogels, which were prepared via the free radical copolymerization of sulfobetaine methacrylate (SBMA) and other monomers including sodium p-styrenesulfonate (NaSS), acrylic acid, N-isopropylacrylamide, and 2-(dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate. The PSBMA hydrogel showed increased swelling ratio with the increase of ionic strength at the same temperature, and the swelling process reflected endothermicity. Interestingly, the PSBMA-NaSS hydrogels collapsed when the ionic strength increased because the ions can weaken the repulsive interaction of the anionic groups of PNaSS. In addition, the PSBMA-NaSS showed high adsorption of methylene blue (760 mg/g). The zwitterionic hydrogels have potential to be used as an adsorbent in the field of wastewater treatment.