A low cost, acrylic acid based low swelling hydrogel

Low swelling hydrogels have attracted much attention because of good mechanical stability, whereas they suffer the shortcoming of high cost. Here, we demonstrate a low-cost low swelling hydrogel which produced using acrylic acid as the main precursor. This hydrogel has a switchable hydrophobic or hydrophilic surface depending on the copolymerized monomers and adjuvants. The gel is moldable and flexible. In fresh water, swelling ratio of the gel is around 0.2 g/g. In saline solutions, it has adjustable swelling ratio while maintaining low swelling properties. This gel has the characteristics of a low BET surface area of 3.9758 m2/g and an average pore diameter of 20 nm. The gel could be used as a smart adaptive material and shape-stable adsorption material in saline environments.