Synthesis and Swelling Behavior of Gelatin-Based Hydrogel Nanocomposites

In this work, a series of hydrogel nanocomposites were prepared by grafting acrylic acid and acrylamide on gelatin in the presence of Na-montmorillonite (Na-MMT) nanoparticles. The characterizations of hydrogel nanocomposites were examined by swelling experiments, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-Ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to study the morphology of the samples. Under the optimized conditions the maximum capacity of swelling in de-ionized water was found to be g/g. In spite of the sensitivity of the hydrogel absorbency to environmental pH, these hydrogel nanocomposites interestingly do not show remarkable changes in wide range of pH (from pH 4 to 10).