Adsorption of water to double-network polymers having a hierarchical structure

摘要

Double-network hydrogels (DN-gels) have cross-linked aqueous polymer networks which result in unique mechanical properties [1,2]. Although the structure of the hydrophilic polymer networks have been previously determined [3,4,5], it was not clear how water molecules are adsorbed to the polymer network. We prepared freeze-dried DN-gels (DNpolymers) made of polyacrylamide and sodium salt of poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid), and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiments were conducted to determine the humidity dependence of the nanoscale structure. The SANS results show that water molecules adsorb on larger structures than the mesh size of polymer networks at low relative humidity (RH), and adsorb gradually on the segmental scale of polymers with increasing RH.