Abstract
Copolymers of 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (VP) and homopolymers of HEMA and VP were crosslinked in the presence of different mol% of melamine trimethacrylamide (MMAm) and melamine triacrylamide (MAAm) as crosslinkers by bulk radical polymerization. The resultant xerogels were characterized by extracting the soluble fractions and measuring the equilibrium water content. Lower critical solution transition temperatures (LCST) were measured by DSC. The properties of crosslinked HEMA and VP copolymers, VP and HEMA series were evaluated in terms of compositional drift of polymerization, heterogeneous crosslinking, and chemical structure of the relevant components. Soluble fractions of the crosslinked networks were reduced by varying the MAAm and MMAm concentrations. The influence of environmental conditions such as temperature and pH on the swelling behavior of these polymeric gels was investigated. The swelling behaviors of the resulting gels show pH sensitivity. This behavior is explained on the basis that amide groups of VP or crosslinkers could be hydrolyzed to form negatively charged carboxylate ion groups in the produced networks in response to an external pH variation. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry