Superabsorbent polymers are cross-linked polyelectrolytes. Because of their ionic nature and interconnected structure, they absorb large quantities of water and other aqueous solutions without dissolving. This makes them ideally suited as absorbents of body fluids in many personal care products sold today, including baby diapers, adult incontinence products, and feminine napkins. Several emerging applications are also described. A simple laboratory preparation of partially neutralized, cross-linked poly(acrylic acid) is given along with test methods suitable for measuring the absorption capacity of the product. Experiments are described that demonstrate the ability of a swelling gel to perform work, and the ability of a gel to exclude macromolecular solutes from diffusing into its porous, cross-linked structure.
Our Secondary School editors work hard to distill all the JCE materials to produce a fraction of particular interest to high school teachers. We call it CLIC.
In recent years we have worked hard to better match our advertisers with our readers. When shopping for chemistry education materials, visit our advertisers' WWW sites first.
Take JCE along on your outreach missions. Copies of the Journal, guest access to JCE Online, our publications catalog, and more are available for your participants.