Study Of Water Absorption And Self-Healing Behavior Of Carboxymethyl Cellulose/ Poly (Acrylamide-Co-Vinyl Imidazole) Ph-Sensitive Hydrogel

In this work, acrylamide (AAm) and vinyl imidazole (VI) were co-polymerized in the presence of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) which resulted solid hydrogel electrolyte (SHE) with fair self-healing property. The hydrogel electrolyte exhibited pH-dependent swelling behavior with percent equilibrium swelling (PES) of 5170, 1892 and 5163 in the swelling media of pH 1.0, 6.8 and 13.0 respectively. In addition, the kinetic swelling was best interpreted by the Power function model, revealing a chain relaxation-controlled water uptake at pH 1.0 and 13.0. The SHE showed an excellent self-healing property which was confirmed by “LED glowing” experiment. As compared to its original elongation of 200 %, the self-healed hydrogel exhibited an elongation of 157 %, thus showing restoration tendency.