F. Horkay et al., Osmotic and SANS observations on sodium polyacrylate hydrogels in physiological salt solutions, MACROMOLEC, 33(22), 2000, pp. 8329-8333
The volume transition induced by the addition of calcium into lightly cross
-linked fully neutralized sodium polyacrylate hydrogels, swollen in 40 mM N
aCl solutions, is investigated by osmotic swelling pressure and small-angle
neutron scattering (SANS) measurements. In this reversible transition, the
polymer volume fraction psi changes by more than an order of magnitude. Th
e longitudinal osmotic modulus M-os deduced from macroscopic measurements s
hows an abrupt increase at the transition. The intensity of the scattered r
adiation can be decomposed into a static and a dynamic component. The forme
r exhibits Pored scattering behavior, while the latter obeys an Orstein-Zer
nike relation. The observed intensity of the dynamic part has a maximum at
the transition and exhibits a functional dependence on the calcium concentr
ation, which is similar to that of the osmotic susceptibility psi (2)/M-os,
determined from direct osmotic measurements.