Experimental study demonstrates high water absorption and durability in multi-crosslinked rubber, indicating strong utility for agricultural and construction applications.
A multi‐crosslinked, self‐foaming water‐swellable rubber (WSR) with excellent water absorption performance and reusability was successfully prepared through free radical polymerization of acrylic acid (AA), methyl methacrylate (MMA), urea and styrene‐butadiene styrene (SBS). The chemical structure and morphologies were characterized by fourier transform‐infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The influence of the content of urea on water absorption performance and mechanical properties was investigated. The optimal polymerization condition was determined to be AA/urea = 10/2, and WSR with the best comprehensive performance was obtained. The maximum of water absorption in deionized water and physiological saline were 494.81% and 196.92%, and the minimum of weight loss in deionized water was only 4.58%, indicating excellent water absorption stability and favorable reusability. WSR prepared in our study demonstrated a promising application prospect in the field of agriculture and construction materials.
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Hou et al. (2026) studied this question.
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