Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Reactive & Functional Polymers

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/react

Synthesis and characterization of superabsorbent composite

by using glow discharge electrolysis plasma
Jinzhang Gao *, Aixiang Wang, Yan Li, Yan Fu, Jianlin Wu, Youdi Wang, Yujing Wang
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A convenient and effective technique for polymerization to produce the poly(acrylic acid-
Received 25 January 2008 co-acrylamide)/montmorillonite superabsorbent composite in aqueous solution was devel-
Received in revised form 12 June 2008 oped, in which the reaction was initiated by the glow discharge electrolysis (GDE) plasma
Accepted 22 June 2008
rather than chemical initiators. The resulted superabsorbent has higher water absorbency,
Available online 3 July 2008
for example, 1024 g g1 for distilled water and 56 g g1 for 0.9% NaCl solution. To optimize
the synthesis conditions, the following parameters were examined in detail: the discharge
voltage, discharge time, ratio of acrylic acid to acrylamide, neutralization of acrylic acid,
Keywords:
Glow discharge electrolysis
amount of crosslinking agent and montmorillonite added. The superabsorbent composite
Plasma was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron
Polymerization microscopy (SEM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Results indicated that montmo-
Superabsorbent composite rillonite was effectively bonded with polymer. Moreover, the water absorbency, water
Water absorbency retention and thermal stability of the superabsorbent composite prepared by GDE were
higher than those of the superabsorbent composite by conventional chemical method
under the same polymerization conditions.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The enormous demand for superabsorbents in many
fields such as agriculture, horticulture, sanitary goods, drug
delivery, artificial snow and waste-water treatment is
growing due to their characteristics capable of absorbing
large amounts of water, either pure or containing salts.
Generally speaking, superabsorbents are kinds of cross-
linked hydrophilic polymers, which can be synthesized
by means of thermal polymerization or chemical polymer-
ization by using chemical initiators [1–4]. Owing to the
existence of pollution caused by the chemical initiators in
chemical polymerization, thereby, other techniques such
as radiation and plasma are emerging to initiate the poly-
merization reaction, especially, in preparing the superab-
sorbents [5–7].
Thirty years ago, the technique of contact glow dis-
charge electrolysis (CGDE) was introduced into the synthe-
* Corresponding author. Fax: +86 931 7971989.
E-mail address: jzgao@nwnu.edu.cn (J. Gao).
sis chemistry, for example, Denaro and Hough [8] studied
the polymerization in an aqueous solution of acrylamide;
Harada and Iwasaki [9] synthesized the amino acids from
aliphatic carboxylic acid by glow discharge electrolysis. Re-
cently, Sengupta et al. [10] taking CGDE as a new tool
examined in detail the acrylamide polymerization. It will
be seen from these facts that the CGDE can replace chem-
ical initiators in the field of synthetic chemistry, because
there are lots of energetic species including free radicals
generating during the CGDE process. Basically, CGDE is
an unconventional electrochemical process in which a
plasma is sustained by dc glow discharge between an elec-
trode and the surface of the electrolyte surrounding it.
Moreover, the chemical yields at the glow discharge elec-
trode course are more than those obtained theoretically
at normal electrolysis [11–13]. Sengupta et al. [14] found
that the yield of OH radical was 12 mol for the passage
of each mole electron of electricity in CGDE. In other
words, CGDE can be considered as rich sources of free rad-
icals in aqueous solution, and applied to initiate the poly-
merization reaction. About the CGDE technique, a review

1381-5148/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.reactfunctpolym.2008.06.018
1378 J. Gao et al. / Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383

has been discussed in brief [15]. Compared with the high

pressure and high vacuum apparatus used to produce plas-
ma, this technique is rather cheap in cost for the setup and
very easy in operation. This is why the CGDE has been used
in waste-water treatment and synthetic chemistry.
Recently, the preparation of organic–inorganic superab-
sorbent composites has attracted great attention due to
their relatively low production cost and higher water
absorbency [16,17]. In this paper, poly(acrylic acid-co-
acrylamide)/montmorillonite (PAA-AM/MMT) superabsor-
bent composite was synthesized by aqueous solution
polymerization with the CGDE plasma. The polymerization
conditions and their effects on the water absorbency of the
superabsorbent composite were investigated in detail.

2. Experimental part
Fig. 1b. Photograph of setup for polymerization initiated by the CGDE
plasma.
2.1. Materials and apparatus

Acrylic acid (AA), acrylamide (AM), N,N-methylenebis-

of 10 mm. There is a magnetic stirring bar at the bottom
acrylamide (MBA), potassium persulfate (KPS), sodium
of the flask to keep the solution mixed well.
hydroxide and methanol were of analytical reagent grade
and purchased from Tianjin Chemical Reagent Factory of
2.2. Preparation of superabsorbent composite
China, in which AA was distilled under reduced pressure
for further purification. Montmorillonite (MMT) obtained
For a typical experiment, 0.9 g MMT and 17 mL AA
from Xinjiang Tuokexun Chemical Technology general fac-
were added to the reactor as shown in Fig. 1. The mix-
tory was washed, centrifuged and filtered prior to use.
ture was stirred at room temperature for 24 h so that
The experimental apparatus consists of a high voltage
MMT was sodden enough by AA. Distilled water
power supply and a reactor as shown in Figs. 1a and 1b.
(83 mL), AM (12 g) and MBA (0.18 g) were then added
The power supply is a Model of LW100J1 DC power supply
to the reactor. Note: (1) For deoxygenation, 10 min of
providing the voltage of 0–1000 V and current range of
bubbling N2 is enough; (2) 30 min of stirring are required
0–1 A. The reactor is a 250-mL four-necked flask equipped
to mix the solution. CGDE was started with 700 V of volt-
with a reflux condenser, a thermometer, and a nitrogen
age and 50 mA of current. After 10 min of discharge, the
line, a platinum anode with a diameter of 0.5 mm sealed
power supply was turned off, and then 35 mL sodium
into a glass tube to generate glow discharge plasma in
hydroxide (5 mol L1) was added to the reactor, and then
aqueous solution and a graphite cathode with a diameter
the polymerization reaction was continued for additional
30 min at 85 °C (in order to increase the yield and water
absorbency of composite) under N2 ambient (flow rate of
50 mL min1). The resulting product was washed with
distilled water, dewatered with methanol, and dried in
vacuum oven at 65 °C for getting a constant weight, then
Cooling water milled and screened. The PAA-AM/MMT superabsorbent
composite was obtained.

2.3. Measurement of water absorbency

Cooling water
Accurately weighed superabsorbent composite (ca.
Nitrogen port 0.10 g) powder was immersed in excessive distilled water
Anode Cathode (1000 mL) or 0.9% NaCl solution (500 mL) at room temper-
ature to reach the swelling equilibrium. The swollen sam-
ple was then separated by filtering through a 100-mesh
Thermometer screen. The water absorbency of superabsorbent compos-
ite, Q H2 O , was calculated using the following equation:

m2  m1
Q H2 O ¼ ð1Þ
m1
Strring bar
where m1 and m2 are the weights of the dry superabsor-
Fig. 1a. Experimental setup of polymerization initiated by the CGDE bent and the swollen superabsorbent, respectively. Q H2 O
plasma. is calculated as grams of water per gram of sample.
 J. Gao et al. / Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383
2.4. Measurement of water retention
2.4.1. Water retention at high temperature
A certain amount of superabsorbent hybrid was dis-
persed in distilled water at ambient temperature. The
swollen superabsorbent composite reaching the swelling
equilibrium was dried for 12 h at 75 °C and weighed at dif-
ferent time intervals. Water retention was calculated using
the following equation:
W2  W1
RH2 O ¼  100%
W2
where W2 and W1 are the weights of the swollen superab-
sorbent before and after heating, respectively. RH2 O is water
retention.
2.4.2. Water retention under pressure
The swollen superabsorbent composite was placed into
centrifuge tubes and then centrifuged for different times at
a speed of 4000 rpm, weighed, and water retention was
calculated using Eq. (2).
2.5. Characterization
The infrared spectra of the superabsorbent composite
were recorded on a DIGILAB FTS 3000 FT-IR spectropho-
tometer (USA) with KBr pellet in the range of 4000–
400 cm1. SEM studies were performed in a JSM 5600 LV
scanning electron microscope (Japan), using an accelera-
tion voltage of 20 kV. Before SEM observation, all the sam-
ples were fixed on copper stubs and coated with gold.
Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out in a PE
TG/DTA 6300 instrument (USA), over a temperature range
of 20–800 °C, with a heating rate of 10 °C min1 and under
a nitrogen flow rate of 50 mL min1.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Optimization of polymerization conditions
In general, the superabsorbent can be considered as a
polymer with network structure which has many three-
dimensional caverns. The larger the cavern is, the more
the water absorbency for superabsorbent would be. Before
swelling, the polymer chains are intertwisted together to
form the tight network structure. If the superabsorbent is
immersed in water, the charged group (such as –COOH
and –COONa) of three-dimensional caverns will be dissoci-
ated to form ionic network as shown in Fig. 2. Then, the
free ions in caverns tend to diffuse into water. However,
due to the electrostatic force between negative and posi-
tive ions nearby interface, only a few of free ions can leave
the network structure, and most of them are still remain-
ing in the superabsorbent.
We can think of the three-dimensional cavern as being
a ball with a certain elasticity and rigidity. Over-increasing
the crosslinked density of polymer means the increase of
rigidity of cavern; the response will be the decrease of
capacity of water absorbency, vice versa. In fact, the swell-
ing capacity of the superabsorbent is dependent on many
1379
ð2Þ
Fig. 2. Scheme for network structure of superabsorbent (just showing a
plane).
network structure parameters [18], as shown in the Flory
equation:
 2 
1 i 1
2 mu s1=2
þ ð12  xÞ=V 1
q5=3
m ¼ ð3Þ
ðm=V 0 Þ
where qm stands for the swelling ratio (or water absor-
bency), v/V0 is the number of effectively cross-linked
chains in unit volume, S* is the ionic strength of the swol-
len liquid, i/vu is the concentration of fixed charge referred
to the un-swollen networks, x is the polymer–solvent ther-
modynamic interaction parameter, and V1 is the molar vol-
ume of water. In this equation, the first term of numerator
represents the ionic osmotic pressure and the secondary
term means the affinity of the hydrogel with water, the
sum of the two terms stands for the swelling capacity. As
mentioned above, owing to the denominator, m=V 0 being
the crosslinked density, it must be chosen a suitable value
to offer the optimum of elasticity and rigidity for a desired
superabsorbent. The small value of m=V 0 implies the low
crosslinked density, that is, no three-dimensional cavern
is formed. The superabsorbent with a low crosslinked den-
sity is destroyed easily when it was immersed in water.
Contrarily, a very strong crosslinked density could de-
crease the elasticity of cavern, reducing the capacity of
water absorbency.
Considering acrylic acid superabsorbent resins, the in-
crease of negative charge in the network leads to the cav-
ern expanded due to the electrostatic repulsion, also
resulting in the increase of cavern volume, i.e., more water
can be absorbed by the superabsorbent. As we know, the
ability of water absorbency for any superabsorbents to ab-
sorb brine is always less than pure water, because the
water absorbency declines with the rise of the ionic con-
centration in the external solution according to Eq. (3).
In a word, the increase of the ionic osmotic pressure and
the hydrophilicity and the decrease of the crosslinked
1380 J. Gao et al. / Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383

density are beneficial in improving the water absorbency. 1200

The above network structure parameters are determined
by the reaction conditions. Therefore, the effect of the reac-

Water Absorbency (g.g )

-1
tion conditions on water absorbency of superabsorbent 1000
composite must be discussed in detail.

3.1.1. Effect of discharge voltage on water absorbency 800

Just as shown in Fig. 3, the water absorbency increases
sharply with the increase of voltage up to 700 V, and then
decreases with the further growth of voltage. This is attrib-
uted to the fact that at the beginning the increase of a rad-
ical is a benefit to form the stable network structure of
polymer. Over 700 V, the further increase of a radical can
cause the self cross-linking between the end-groups in
the polymer so that the space to hold water is reduced.
In addition, with the rise of the voltage, the energetic spe-
cies including radical increase, so more monomer is initi-
ated to polymerize and the yield of composite undergoes
a sharp rise between 600 V and 700 V. However, the rise
in yield slows down over 700 V. Thereby, 700 V was chosen
as the applied voltage in this study.
3.1.2. Effect of discharge time on water absorbency
The effect of discharge time on water absorbency of a
superabsorbent composite is shown in Fig. 4. The maxi-
mum of water absorbency appears for 10 min of discharge
time. Further, prolonging the discharge time can speed up
the crosslinking reaction to cause the network shrinkage,
lowering the swelling capacity of a superabsorbent
composite.
3.1.3. Effect of mass ratio of AA/AM on water absorbency
As we know, there are three kinds of hydrophilic groups
(i.e., –CONH2, –COO and –COOH groups) in the poly(acrylic
acid-co-acrylamide) chains and their hydrophilicities are
not the same. Obviously, the hydrophilicity of –COOH and
–COO is stronger than that of –CONH2. Thus, the bigger ra-
tio of AA/AM is favorable to increasing the water absor-
bency. Moreover, the collaborative absorbent effect arising
from three hydrophilic groups is superior to that of any indi-
600
400
6 8 10 12 14
Discharge Time (min)
Fig. 4. Effect of discharge time on water absorbency (discharge voltage,
700 V; mass ratio of AA to AM, 1.5; degree of neutralization, 70%;
crosslinker content, 0.6%; MMT content, 3%; polymerization temperature,
85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min).
vidual hydrophilic group. Just as shown in Fig. 5, with
increasing the mass ratio of AA/AM, the water absorbency
of superabsorbent increases, too.
3.1.4. Effect of degree of neutralization on water absorbency
Due to the hydrophilicity of –COO group being stron-
ger than –COOH group, the water absorbency increases
with the increase in degree of neutralization (DN) at the
beginning. When the DN is more than 70%, a decrease of
water absorbency is observed with further neutralization
as shown in Fig. 6. On the one hand, acrylic acid is more ac-
tive than sodium acrylate, when DN is lower, both poly-
merization rate and exothermic rate would be quicker.
The rise of reaction temperature of system would lead to
higher cross-linking degree and make the free water
stocked in the hydrogel net decrease [3]. On the other
hand, according to Eq. (3), the equilibrium swelling ratio
(qm) increases with the rise of the ionic charges of net-
works. It is worth noticing that at a higher concentration

1000
1000
Water Absorbency (g.g )
-1

Water Absorbency (g.g )

-1

800
800

600
600

400
400

200 200
600 650 700 750 800 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6
Discharge Voltage (V) Mass Ratio of AA to AM

Fig. 3. Effect of discharge voltage on water absorbency (discharge time, Fig. 5. Effect of mass ratio AA/AM on water absorbency (discharge
10 min; mass ratio of AA to AM, 1.5; degree of neutralization, 70%; voltage, 700 V; discharge time, 10 min; degree of neutralization, 70%;
crosslinker content, 0.6%; MMT content, 3%; polymerization temperature, crosslinker content, 0.6%; MMT content, 3%; polymerization temperature,
85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min). 85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min).
 J. Gao et al. / Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383 1381

1100 1100

Water Absorbency (g.g )

1000

-1
Water Absorbency (g.g )
-1

1000

900
900
800

800
700

600 700
50 60 70 80 90 0 1 2 3 4 5
Neutralization Degree (%) Amount of Montmorillonite (%)

Fig. 6. Effect of neutralization degree on water absorbency (discharge Fig. 8. Effect of the amount of MMT on water absorbency (discharge
voltage, 700 V; discharge time, 10 min; mass ratio of AA to AM, 1.5; voltage, 700 V; discharge time, 10 min; mass ratio of AA to AM, 1.5;
crosslinker content, 0.6%; MMT content, 3%; polymerization temperature, degree of neutralization, 70%; crosslinker content, 0.6%; polymerization
85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min). temperature, 85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min).

of sodium ions (i.e., more than 70% of DN) the effectively
negative charges of carboxyl groups will be screened to re-
duce their electrostatic repulsion, resulting in declined
water absorbency.
3.1.5. Effect of crosslinker concentration on water absorbency
It is clear from Eq. (3) that the larger denominator (i.e.,
crosslinking density) causes the water absorbency de-
creased. The experimental results in Fig. 7 are in good
agreement with the above ratiocination, that is to say,
water absorbency sharply decreased with the increase of
MBA amount in the range of 0.6–1.0% (weight percent rel-
ative to monomer).
3.1.6. Effect of MMT concentration on water absorbency
It can be seen from Fig. 8 that the superabsorbent com-
posite shows higher water absorbency relative to the
poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) when the MMT amount
of MMT increased from 0% to 5.0% (weight percent relative
to monomer), having a maximum of water absorbency at
3.0% MMT. Before 3.0%, the increase of MMT is benefit to
form a network structure, enhancing the ability of water
absorbency. Over 3.0%, further increase of MMT decreases
remarkably the elasticity of superabsorbent, reducing the
ability of water absorbency, because the MMT in the net-
work structure has a lot of hydroxyl groups to form super-
fluous network point.
3.2. FT-IR spectra
To compare the properties of the products obtained by
means of two methods (i.e., the chemical initiator and
the glow discharge plasma), under the same conditions,
the PAA-AM/MMT was synthesized with KPS as an initiator
according to the following conditions: mass ratio of AA to
AM, 1.5; DN, 70%; crosslinker content, 0.6%; MMT content,
3%; KPS content, 0.3%; polymerization temperature, 85 °C;
polymerization time, 40 min.
Fig. 9a and c represents, respectively, the products of
PAA-AM/MMT synthesized by using the chemical initiator

1200
50
a
Water Absorbency (g.g )
-1

1000
40
(%)Transmittance

b
800 30

20
600

10
c
400
0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
0
Crosslinker Concentration (%) 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500
Fig. 7. Effect of crosslinker concentration on water absorbency (discharge Wavenumber (cm-1)
voltage, 700 V; discharge time, 10 min; mass ratio of AA to AM, 1.5;
degree of neutralization, 70%; MMT content, 3%; polymerization temper- Fig. 9. FT-IR spectra of (a) PAA-AM/MMT-1, (b) PAA-AM by CGDE and (c)
ature, 85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min). PAA-AM/MMT-2.
1382 J. Gao et al. / Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383

(here, named PAA-AM/MMT-1) and PAA-AM/MMT by using
CGDE (here, named PAA-AM/MMT-2). Fig. 9b represents the
spectra of polymer PAA-AM. Compared with the spectrum
of PAA-AM (Fig. 9b), the characteristic absorption peak at
1034 cm1 was corresponding to the Si–O stretching of
MMT appearing in PAA-AM/MMT-1 and PAA-AM/MMT-2
(Fig. 9a and c). Furthermore, the characteristic absorption
peak at 3624 cm1 was attributed to the OH groups on
MMT disappearing after the reaction (Fig. 9a and c), mean-
ing that the reaction between OH groups on MMT and poly-
mer took place during polymerization.
3.3. Morphology analysis
Fig. 10 exhibits the electron scanning micrographs of
PAA-AM/MMT-1 (Fig. 10a) and PAA-AM/MMT-2 (Fig. 10b).
Both appearances are basically similar with many furrows
on the surfaces, indicating that the glow discharge plasma
can initiate the polymerization to prepare the superabsor-
bents with a higher capacity of water absorbency. Due to
the latter having larger specific surface area than the for-
mer, the capacity of water absorbency for the latter is also
superior to that of the former.
3.4. Water absorbency
The results of water absorbency for superabsorbent com-
posite prepared by the two methods are listed in Table 1.
A comparison indicates that the CGDE technique can be used
successfully to synthesize superabsorbent composite with
high quality, such as PAA-AM/MMT. In this study, a satisfac-
tory result is given below: 1024 g g1 for distilled water and
56 g g1 for 0.9% NaCl solution.
3.5. Water retention

Table 2 shows the water retention capacity of swollen

superabsorbent composites by the two methods at a higher
temperature (75 °C). When the products were heated at
75 °C for 12 h, approximately 83% of the distilled water
can be retained for the superabsorbent prepared by CGDE
technique, while the other one being only 75%.
Table 3 demonstrates that superabsorbent composite
prepared by CGDE has the water retention of 96% for dis-
tilled water after centrifugation at 4000 rpm for 40 min,
being superior to the product (93%) synthesized by the
chemical method.

3.6. Thermal stability

Thermal stability is an important physical property of

superabsorbent under high temperature. Fig. 11a (dotted
line) and Fig. 11b (solid line) are the thermogravimetric

Table 1
The absorbency of superabsorbent composite by different methods

Superabsorbent composite Q H2 O (g g1)

Distilled water 0.9% NaCl
PAA-AM/MMT-1 558 44
PAA-AM/MMT-2 1024 56

Table 2
The water retention of superabsorbent composite at high temperature by
different methods (%)

Time (h) (75 °C) 2 4 6 8 10 12

PAA-AM/MMT-1 96 93 89 84 79 75
PAA-AM/MMT-2 98 96 93 90 87 83

Table 3
The water retention of superabsorbent composite under pressure by
different methods (%)

Time (min) 10 20 30 40
PAA-AM/MMT-1 98 97 95 93
Fig. 10. Scanning electron micrographs of (a) PAA-AM/MMT-1 and (b) PAA-AM/MMT-2 99 98 97 96
PAA-AM/MMT-2.
 J. Gao et al. / Reactive & Functional Polymers 68 (2008) 1377–1383 1383

100 about 1024 g g1 for distilled water, and 56 g g1 for 0.9%
NaCl solution, respectively. The optimum conditions are gi-
90
ven below: applied voltage, 700 V; discharge time, 10 min;
80 mass ratio of AA to AM, 1.5; DN, 70%; crosslinker content,
0.6%; MMT content, 3%; polymerization temperature,
70
85 °C; post-polymerization time, 30 min.
TG (%)

60
50
b
40
a Science and Technology of Education Ministry (00250),
30
20
0 200 400 600
Temperature (ºC)
Fig. 11. TGA curves of (a) PAA-AM/MMT-1 and (b) PAA-AM/MMT-2.
analysis of PAA-AM/MMT-1 and PAA-AM/MMT-2. Below
100 °C, two products are stable with losing a little mois-
ture. The first weight loss is started at 221 °C (19.79%) for
PAA-AM/MMT-1 and at 265 °C (21.49%) for PAA-AM/
MMT-2. The major weight loss is started at 366 °C
(31.08%) for the former and at 382 °C (18.40%) for the lat-
ter, reflecting that PAA-AM/MMT prepared by using CGDE
has a higher thermal stability than one by the chemical
method.
4. Conclusions
A comparison study proves that the PAA-AM/MMT
superabsorbent composite can be synthesized by the glow
discharge electrolysis plasma technique under gentle con-
ditions in aqueous solution. That is to say, CGDE plasma
can initiate successfully polymerization and reduce the
pollution to the environment from chemical initiators.
The highest water absorbency of the product obtained is
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Key Project of
the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province
(3ZS041-A25-028), the Project of KJCXGC-01, NWNU, and
800 Gansu Key Lab of Polymer Materials, China.
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