Comparison Between the Elasticity of Polyacrylamide and Polyacrylic Gels

Overview & Synopsis

We measured the Young modulus E of polyacrylamide and polyacrylic gels as a function of the crosslink and polymer concentrations. We found that the variation of E with these two parameters is completely different for the two kinds of gels. For the polyacrylic gels, E is an increasing function of the crosslink and polymer concentrations. However, in the case of the polyacrylamide gels, E increases with polymer concentration but not always with the crosslink concentration. For low polymer concentrations, E may saturate or exhibit a maximum when increasing the crosslink concentration. We proposed qualitative interpretations to explain this different behavior.