Thermal transitions in PHEA hydrogels by thermomechanical analysis. A comparison with DSC data

The thermal transitions observed in hydrogels are frequently explained by invoking the existence of different kinds of water such as ‘bound’ and ‘free’ water. However these interpretations are intuitive and do not consider neither the thermodynamics of phase equilibrium nor kinetic aspects. Alternatively, the complicated experimental DSC thermograms have been simply explained in a thermodynamic framework with the help of a transitions diagram where the temperature of the transitions is plotted versus water concentration in the gel. In this work we further support the interpretation of the DSC thermograms on the basis of this diagram by comparing those thermograms with TMA results. The volume changes in the cooling and heating scans can be correlated with the enthalpy changes in the material and can be explained with the transition diagram.