Low‐temperature gelation of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) solution was performed in the presence of CaCl2. The resulting PVA hydrogels showed high stickiness and excellent water‐holding ability. These properties became more remarkable with increasing CaCl2 concentration in solvent. Furthermore, both the peel strength on stainless steel and the degree of swelling of the PVA hydrogel drastically increased as CaCl2 concentration was increased from 20 to 30 wt %. It is concluded that the sticky and water‐holding properties of PVA hydrogels are intimately related to the state of hydration of Ca ions in aqueous environment.
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Cha et al. (1993) studied this question.
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