Microwave Assisted Synthesis of Poly (Acrylamide-co-2-Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate)/Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Semi-IPN Hydrogel

In this study, microwave irradiation technique is used to synthesize poly (acrylamide-co-2-hydroxyethyl methacry-late) / poly(vinyl alcohol) (P(AM-co-HEMA)/PVA) semi-IPN hydrogels, which are separately synthesized by using one-pot polymerization and two-step polymerization techniques. Semi-IPN hydrogels were crosslinked by glutaraldehyde (GA) using ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator. The first step, (P(AM-co-HEMA) network was synthesized in PVA aqueous solution, then followed by glutaraldehyde crosslinking reagent, it formed to semi-IPN structured. The presence of function groups in the structure of hydrogel films were confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Swelling behaviors of the hydrogel were measured gravimetrically in distilled water at the temperature of 27 °C. The results showed that the hydrogel prepared by one-pot polymerization technique exhibited the highest swelling ratio (the percentage swelling has higher than 900%), comparing with the hydrogels prepared by two-step polymerization technique. Therefore, the one-pot polymerization is the suitable technique to prepare the P(AM-co-HEMA)/PVA) semi-IPN hydrogels due to less synthesis time and providing acceptable swelling ratio.