Dynamical modeling and experimental aspects of multi-responsive hydroxy-functional methacrylate-based gels with tunable swelling induced by multivalent ions

Novel materials displaying multi-responsive property were developed by forming crosslinked copolymer systems that exhibit distinct temperature, pH and salt-sensitivity independently. An investigation of the mechanical properties of a novel multi-responsive poly(hydroxypropyl methacrylate) (PHPMA)-based hydrogel system was carried out with two major objectives. First was to study the effect of various preparation conditions; reaction temperature, comonomer content on the elasticity as well as on the absorbency of resulting hydroxy-functional methacrylate-based gels and the second was to interpret their water uptake data by various kinetic models. Experiments were conducted to characterize the equilibrium swelling and temperature/pH-dependent phase transitions of PHPMA-based copolymeric gels prepared by radical crosslinking copolymerization in aqueous solution with tetraethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) as crosslinker. The aqueous equilibrium swelling properties of PHPMA hydrogels and cryogels containing methacrylate-based comonomer were described using N,N-dimethylaminopropyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) having weakly basic cationic groups. For PHPMA-based copolymeric hydrogels, the scaling laws relating the optimum preparation conditions with the crosslinking density N and the swelling degree q_v were derived. Dynamic kinetics profiles were evaluated to outline the swelling/deswelling response of the resulting hydrogels and cryogels which presents useful information when designing specific applications that pursue or require the absorption of pH-sensitive or ionic-strength-sensitive molecules.