Synthesis and properties of starch graft acrylic acid Na montmorillonite superabsorbent nanocomposite hydrogels

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Abstract The graft copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) onto starch was carried out with monomer/starch weight ratio = 1.5. Cerium ammonium nitrate (CAN) and N,N′‐methylenebis acrylamide (NMBA) were used as initiator and crosslink agent, respectively. Na‐montmorillonite was used as nanoparticles. Starch‐graft‐acrylic acid/Na‐MMT (S‐g‐AA/MMT) nanocomposite hydrogels were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and FTIR analysis. The effect of Na‐MMT content in nanocomposite hydrogels on the swelling behavior was investigated. Increasing the Na‐MMT/monomers ratio up to 1% causes an increment in water absorbency, which indicates that Na‐MMT can improve the ability of water absorbency but further increase of Na‐MMT causes a decrease in water absorbency. In addition, we describe the removal of safranine T from aqueous solutions using S‐g‐AA/MMT nanocomposite hydrogels. Effects of various parameters such as treatment time, initial dye concentration, and amount of the Na‐MMT were investigated. The Freundlich equations were used to fit the equilibrium isotherms. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008