Nanocarbon regulation microstructure and physicochemical properties of polyacrylamide gels

Polyacrylamide (PAM) is an attractive material for the preparation of functional polymer gels due to its excellent compatibility and good viscosity. But pure PAM is difficult to obtain high mechanical properties under high temperature and strong stress, which limits their service life in applications such as water treatment, agriculture, and oil extraction. In this work, we design nanocarbon of different dimensions and sizes to regulate the microstructure of PAM weak gels (referred to as “gels”). The study found that 2D graphene oxide (GO) increased the viscosity of PAM gels by 1.7 times, while also improving the shear resistance and adhesion of PAM gels. More importantly, the aerogels formed by freeze-drying GO/PAM composite gels have the advantages of low density (19.6×10−3 g cm−3), high porosity (92.0 %), excellent thermal stability, and good adsorption (it can adsorb methylene blue dyes). These valuable properties are closely related to geometric dimensions and the number of oxygen-containing groups per unit area of nanocarbon. Therefore, this research proposes that strong cross-linking interactions are formed between nanocarbon of different dimensions and sizes with PAM, which is crucial for microstructural regulation and various physicochemical properties of gels. It provides a new entry point for our versatile design of PAM gels and broadens the application areas of crosslinked gels.