Polymer chemistry attractiveness: Synthesis and swelling studies of gluttonous hydrogels in the advanced academic laboratory

In this article, methods of production of superabsorbent materials are presented, whereby polymerization within a short time span can be achieved and implemented by students in the advanced laboratory environment with relative ease. The first method is solution polymerization and consists of a redox-initiating polymerization of a partially neutralized acrylic acid in aqueous solution at room temperature without a restricted access of air. By this technique, students can gain invaluable 'hands-on' experience in the preparation of the superabsorbent hydrogel networks. The second method is an inverse-suspension polymerization which produces uniform superabsorbent particles as microspheres. The differences between the two techniques are primarily the synthesis time and the quality of the product. Additionally, students are exposed to the fundamentals of swellable materials and their evaluation, learning to integrate concepts from different disciplines of chemistry into experimental approaches to problem solving. Flexibility in the design and implementation allows for the use of this module in polymer, organic, and physical chemistry laboratory courses.