Water and synthetic urine sorption capacity of cellulose-based hydrogels under a compressive stress field

A new apparatus was developed and used to investigate the swelling behavior of crosslinked hydrophilic polymers under an applied load as a function of the absorbed weight in both water and water solutions. A model able to predict the material water uptake as a function of the isotropic compressive stress was also studied. Centrifugation tests were performed to measure the material retention capacity under load, in both water and synthetic urine. The polymers studied in the tests were from a particular class of superabsorbent hydrogels based on cellulose derivatives chemically crosslinked with divinyl sulfone. The hydrogels showed high sorption and retention capacity in both water and water solutions, both in the free state and under load, and significant variations were observed during the modulation of the dry sample porosity. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.