Grafting of N-(hydroxymethyl) acrylamide on to κ-carrageenan: Synthesis, characterization and applications

The synthesis of graft copolymer [κ-carrageenan-g-N-(hydroxymethyl) acrylamide] is carried out in nitrogen atmosphere using potassium peroxymonosulphate (PMS) and glycolic acid (GA) as redox system. The effect of reaction variables including the concentration of N-(hydroxymethyl) acrylamide (4 × 10−2 to 36 × 10−2) mol dm−3, PMS (4 × 10−3 to 20 × 10−3) mol dm−3, GA (1.6 × 10−3 to 4.8 × 10−3) mol dm−3, sulphuric acid (4 × 10−3 to 12 × 10−3) mol dm−3, κ-carrageenan (0.6–1.8) g dm−3 as well as time duration (60–180) min and temperature (25–45) °C has been studied. The physicochemical properties of graft copolymer synthesized have been performed in terms of water swelling, metal ion sorption and flocculation with respect to the κ-carrageenan as a parent polymer. The graft copolymer has been characterized by FTIR and thermogravimetic analysis.