Development of Biodegradable Agar-Agar/Gelatin-Based Superabsorbent Hydrogel as an Efficient Moisture-Retaining Agent

Abstract

Downgrading in the yield of crop is due to the inadequate availability of water. The way out for this trouble is to construct synthetic resources dependent on natural polymers with great water absorption and preservation limits. The present study investigated the design of agar-agar (Agr) and gelatin (GE) copolymerized methyl acrylate (MA) and acrylic acid (AA) hydrogel (Agr/GE-co-MA/AA) as a soil conditioner for moisture maintenance in agriculture. Agr/GE-co-MA/AA hydrogel was prepared by utilizing microwave-assisted green synthesis following the most suitable reaction conditions to obtain a remarkable water swelling percentage. The fabricated Agr/GE-co-MA/AA hydrogel was investigated through field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The water holding capacity of the soil and sand was examined by mixing Agr/GE-co-MA/AA hydrogel with soil and sand. The result demonstrates that the water holding time extended from 10 to 30 days for soil and 6 to 10 days for sand by using Agr/GE-co-MA/AA hydrogel. This synthesized biodegradable, low-cost and non-toxic Agr/GE-co-MA/AA hydrogel shows novelty as soil water maintaining material for irrigation in agriculture.

Freeze-Dried Matrices Composed of Degradable Polymers with Surfactant-Loaded Microparticles Based on Pectin and Sodium Alginate

“…The polymer composites showed enhanced water uptake in all conditions [ 60 ]. Materials with a porous structure, based on hydrophilic polymers such as gelatin and hydroxyethyl cellulose, are characterized by high water absorption ability [ 61 ]. Water molecules penetrate the polymer network and hydrate the most polar hydrophilic groups, which are hydroxyl and carboxylic groups, until reached the equilibrium state.…”

Microwave-Assisted Rapid Synthesis of Reduced Graphene Oxide-Based Gum Tragacanth Hydrogel Nanocomposite for Heavy Metal Ions Adsorption

“…Microwave-assisted copolymerization method was used in the synthesis of gum tragacanth-cl-N,N-dimethylacrylamide hydrogel [5]. In a typical reaction, 0.5 g of gum tragacanth (GT) (in 11 mL of deionized water) was taken in 50 mL beaker, stirred until GT was uniformly mixed with distilled water.…”

“…The higher R 2 values for the pseudo-second-order kinetic model supports Hg 2+ and Cr 6+ ions adsorption onto GT-cl-poly(DMA) hydrogel and GT-cl-poly(DMA)/RGO hydrogel composite through the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. + C e q m (5) where C e is the equilibrium concentration of metal ions solution, q e is the amount of equilibrium adsorbed metal ions, q m is maximum adsorption capacity and b is the Langmuir isotherm constant. The separation factor R L of Langmuir isotherm was examined by using Equation (6) as:…”

“…where K F and n are Freundlich constants and indicate the adsorption capacity and adsorption intensity of adsorbent respectively. The interaction between adsorbent (GT-cl-poly(DMA) hydrogel and GT-cl-poly(DMA)/RGO hydrogel composite) and adsorbate (Hg 2+ and Cr 6+ ) was explained through isotherms model Equations (5) and (7). The Langmuir parameters were calculated from the graph between C e /q e and C e (Figure 8a-d) and presented in Table 5.…”

“…Specifically, hydrogels based on biopolymer have now become very useful in adsorptive wastewater treatment [ 3 ]. Gum tragacanth based hydrogel is highly adsorptive because of the presence of hydroxyl (–OH) and carboxyl (–COOH) groups [ 4 , 5 ]. It is a renewable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly polysaccharide that can be easily polymerized to form cross-linked structures [ 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”