A molecular thermodynamic model was developed for describing the restricted swelling behavior of a thermosensitive hydrogel confined in a limited space. The Gibbs free energy includes two contributions, the contributi...A molecular thermodynamic model was developed for describing the restricted swelling behavior of a thermosensitive hydrogel confined in a limited space. The Gibbs free energy includes two contributions, the contribution of mixing of polymer and solvent calculated by using the lattice model of random polymer solution, and the contribution due to the elasticity of polymer network. This model can accurately describe the swelling behavior of restricted hydrogels under uniaxial and biaxial constraints by using two model parameters. One is the interaction energy parameter between polymer network and solvent, and the other is the size parameter depending on the degree of cross-linking. The calculated results show that the swelling ratio reduces significantly and the phase transition temperature decreases slightly as the restricted degree increases, which agree well with the experimental data.展开更多
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(21076071,21276074)the 111 Project of the Ministry of Education of China(B08021)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China
文摘A molecular thermodynamic model was developed for describing the restricted swelling behavior of a thermosensitive hydrogel confined in a limited space. The Gibbs free energy includes two contributions, the contribution of mixing of polymer and solvent calculated by using the lattice model of random polymer solution, and the contribution due to the elasticity of polymer network. This model can accurately describe the swelling behavior of restricted hydrogels under uniaxial and biaxial constraints by using two model parameters. One is the interaction energy parameter between polymer network and solvent, and the other is the size parameter depending on the degree of cross-linking. The calculated results show that the swelling ratio reduces significantly and the phase transition temperature decreases slightly as the restricted degree increases, which agree well with the experimental data.
