Competition between Osmotic Squeezing versus Friction-Driven Swelling of Gels

Abstract

Some types of hydro-gels have almost the same equilibrium swelling volume in water and in ethylene glycol (EG), a highly viscous liquid completely miscible with water. Experiments showed that when a gel fully swollen with EG is immersed into a large amount of water, it temporarily swells up and then relaxes to the equilibrium volume in water. The temporary swelling is explained by the friction force exerted on the gel network from the outward EG flux In this paper, we experimentally show that the temporary swelling is suppressed by adding linear PEG (polyethylene glycol) in the outer water. Although the suppression seems to be explained by the osmotic pressure (i.e., by the same mechanism as the conventional osmotic squeezing), our theoretical analysis reveals that the effect of PEG is much stronger than that expected from the equilibrium osmotic pressure, implying that the PEG chains are condensed on the gel surface.