Saswati Roy, Priyadarsi De
Oct 9, 2014
Citations
1
Influential Citations
38
Citations
Journal
Polymer
Abstract
Abstract Amino acid based superabsorbent polymer (SAP) organogel library has been synthesized from Boc-glycine/alanine/valine/leucine/isoleucine/phenylalanine methacryloyl-oxyethyl ester (Boc-Gly/Ala/Val/Leu/Ilu/Phe-HEMA), which can switch over to corresponding hydrogels by simple one step Boc deprotection method. Swelling behaviour of organogels is investigated in various organic solvents (dielectric constant ( e ) between 2.25 and 46.7), shows superabsorbent property in nonpolar organic solvents (2.25 ≤ e ≤ 10.26) and moderate degree of swelling in polar aprotic solvents like acetone, N , N -dimethylformamide (DMF), acetonitrile, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), etc. Swelling property of organogels is greatly influenced by the – R group of pendant amino acids and increases as bulkiness and hydrophobicity of – R increased. Organogels release absorbed volatile organic compounds (VOCs) very rapidly at room temperature and bulkiness of – R group accelerate the deswelling kinetic. Deprotection of Boc groups in the organogel network converts them to superabsorbent cationic polyelectrolyte hydrogels with high degree of swelling (∼518 for hydrogel from leucine) due to the presence of –NH 3 + ion functionality, and the swelling ratio of hydrogels is drastically affected by the – R group of amino acids moiety, pH of aqueous medium and ionic strength of the solutions.