Superabsorbent Hydrogel from Sago Starch: The Effects of Crosslinking Agent on Thermal Stability and FTIR Analysis

Abstract

For several decades, superabsorbent polymer hydrogels had attracted the researchers’ attention due to its afforded unique environmental and commercial advantages. This paper reported the study on the effect of cross linker on the sago starch superabsorbent hydrogel (SSH), prepared via graft co-polymerization method of acrylic acid (AA) onto sago starch (SS). The AA grafted copolymer was obtained via a redox initiator system of ammonium persulfate (APS) and in the presence of N, N’ - methylenebisacrylamide (N-MBA) crosslinker. Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra proved that AA was grafted onto SS. The thermal stability of SSH is increases with the addition of crosslinker.