Abstract
In order to understand the moisture diffusion, we combine the obstruction-scaling model with the moisture clustering in confined spaces of the polymer hydrogel, with relevance to the performance of the super desiccant polymer. Special attention is focused on elucidating the effect of chain stiffness by considering the conformation of polymer chain on the basis of polymer physics. Relevant parameters for calculations are determined from literature information as well as the best fits for reported data performed with the copolymer. Our results exhibit the moisture diffusion decreases with increasing chain stiffness represented by the persistence length. Note that the larger persistence length provides smaller radius of openings in void spaces, resulting in the stronger hindrance effect on the moisture diffusion. Higher temperature makes the water molecules to be easier to form clusters, which provides the decrease in diffusivity. The increase of moisture diffusion at low humidity is attributed to the swelling of the chain, whereas its decrease at high humidity results from the water clustering.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amsden, B., 1999, An obstruction-scaling model for diffusion in homogeneous hydrogels, Macromolecules 32, 874.
Amsden, B., K. Grotheer, and D. Angl, 2002, Influence of polymer ionization degree on solute diffusion in polyelectrolyte gels, Macromolecules 35, 3179.
Bohdanecky, M., V. Petrus, and B. Sedlacek, 1983, Estimation of the characteristic ratio of polyacrylamide in water and in a mixed theta-solvent, Makromol. Chem. 184, 2061.
Brandrup, J., E.H. Immergut, and E.A. Grulke, 2004, Polymer Handbook, 4th Ed., Wiley, New York.
Clague, D.S. and R.J. Phillips, 1996, Hindered diffusion of spherical macromolecules through dilute fibrous media, Phys. Fluids 8, 1720.
Cukier, R.I., 1984, Diffusion of brownian spheres in semidilute polymer-solutions, Macromolecules 17, 252.
Dean, J.A. (Ed.), 1999, Lange’s Handbook of Chemistry, 15th Ed., McGraw-Hill, New York.
Gouanve, F., S. Marais, A. Bessadok, D. Langevin, and M. Metayer, 2007, Kinetics of water sorption in flax and PET fibers, Eur. Polym. J. 43, 586.
Gudeman, L.F. and N.A. Peppas, 1995, Preparation and characterization of pH-sensitive, interpenetrating networks of poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(acrylic acid), J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 55, 919.
Koch, D.L. and J.F. Brady, 1986, The effective diffusivity of fibrous media, AIChE J. 32, 575.
Larson, R.G., 1999, The Structure and Rheology of Complex Fluids, Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
Lee, J. and D.-Y. Lee, 2012, Sorption characteristics of a novel polymeric desiccant, Int. J. Refrig. 35, 940.
Ogston, A.G., 1958, The spaces in a uniform random suspension of fibres, Trans. Faraday Soc. 54, 1754.
Ogston, A.G., B.N. Preston, and J.D. Wells, 1973, Transport of compact particles through solutions of chain-polymers, Proc. Roy. Soc. (London), Ser. A 333, 297.
Okay, O. and S.B. Sariisik, 2000, Swelling behavior of poly(acrylamide-co-sodium acrylate) hydrogels in aqueous salt solutions: theory versus experiments, Eur. Polym. J. 36, 393.
Park, G.S., 1986, Transport principle — solution, diffusion, and permeation in polymer membranes; P.M. Bungay et al. (Eds.), Synthetic Membranes: Science, Engineering and Applications, Holland, Reidel.
Peleg, M., 1993, Assessment of a semi-empirical four parameter general model for sigmoid moisture sorption isotherms, J. Food Process Eng. 16, 21.
Phillips, R.J., W.M. Deen, and J.F. Brady, 1990, Hindered transport in fibrous membranes and gels — effect of solute size and fiber configuration, J. Colloid Interf. Sci. 139, 363.
Skouri, R., F. Schosseler, J.P. Munch, and S.J. Candau, 1995, Swelling and elastic properties of polyelectrolyte gels, Macromolecules 28, 197.
Starkweather, H.W., 1963, Clustering of water in polymers, J. Polym. Sci. Part B: Polym. Lett. 1, 133.
Timmermann, E.O., 2003, Multilayer sorption parameters: BET or GAB values? Colloids Surf. A 220, 235.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yang, Y., Chun, MS. The effect of chain stiffness on moisture diffusion in polymer hydrogel by applying obstruction-scaling model. Korea-Aust. Rheol. J. 25, 267–271 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13367-013-0027-4
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13367-013-0027-4