Poly(acrylic acid–butyl acrylate)-Based Physical Hydrogel for Adsorption and Microwave-Assisted Fenton Degradation of Cationic Dye

In this work, hydrophobic association physical hydrogels were prepared by photoinitiated copolymerization of acrylic acid and butyl acrylate, followed by water immersion. The chemical structure, mechanical properties, self-healing behavior, and self-recovery properties of the physical hydrogels were studied in detail. The hydrogel possessed a large number of carboxyl groups owing to its high content of acrylic acid, and it was used to adsorb cationic dye. Different from brittle chemical hydrogels, the as-prepared physical hydrogels exhibited good tolerance to microwave heating. Thus, the dye-adsorbed hydrogel was successfully applied for microwave-assisted Fenton degradation of cationic dyes. Starting from the unique structure and properties of physical hydrogels, this work successfully explored application scenarios of these systems in dye adsorption and microwave-assisted degradation. The present findings will contribute to understand the relationships among structure, properties, and practical applications of physical hydrogels.