Preparation and Characterization of Bead-type Super-absorbent Polymer by Novel UV Polymerization

In this study, bead-type super-absorbent polymers (SAPs) were prepared via a novel UV polymerization method with acrylic acid, acrylamide, N,N'-methylene-bis-acrylamide and UV initiator. The relationships between the content of UV initiator and the physical/chemical properties and of SAPs were established by analyzing the absorption capacity and compression strength according to the content of UV initiator. As the content of UV initiator was increased, the absorption capacity of SAPs was gradually increased but the compressive strength was decreased owing to the formation of SAPs with low molecular weight. Also, the compressive strength (1.02 kgf/cm(2)) of the UV-polymerized SAPs was higher than those of SAPs obtained from other polymerization methods. Furthermore, the UV polymerized SAPs (UV-SAB) retained the absorbed water for 32 days, and thus the release properties of UV-SAB sample were found to be superior to other SAPs.