Preparation And Properties Of Novel High Oil-absorbing Polymer Gels

With the continuous development of modern industry, oil and various organic solvents are used widely, pollution problems along with oil and organic solvent leaks become more and more serious. Therefore, the development of oil-absorbing materials with high swelling degree becomes an urgent-resolving problem.In this paper, preparation and properties of butyl acrylate-styrene(BA-St) copolymerized gel was investigated first. And then we studied the preparation and main factors affecting the absorption properties of two types of polyelectrolyte gels containing vinyl acetated ionic liquid and imidazolyl ionic liquid in different organic solvents. The detailed content as follows:During the synthesis of butyl acrylate-styrene(BA-St) copolymerized gel, the effects of feed ratio of monomer, amount of initiator and crosslinker were discussed. The results showed that, feed ratio of monomer significantly affected the oil-absorbing properties, and operation conditions were optimized as follows: a single monomer BA, 1.0wt% divinylbenzene(DVB) crosslinker, 0.6wt% potassium persulfate(KPS) initiator. In this case, the BA-St high oilabsorbing gel had the best performance in organic solvents.During preparation of polyelectrolyte gels containing vinyl acetated ionic liquid, weakly coordinating anions(tetraphenylborate and tetrafluoroborate) quaternary ammonium monomer were parpered by alkylation of tertiary amine, esterification of hydroxyl quaternary ammonium and anion exchange. Operation conditions of polyelectrolyte gels were optimized as follows, BA: weakly coordinating anions quaternary ammonium: azobisisobutyronitrile(AIBN): DVB = 95:5:2:1(mol%). In this case, The maximum oil absorbency of tetraphenylborate and tetrafluoroborate polyelectrolyte gels to carbon tetrachloride were 27.3g·g-1 and 22.3 g·g-1 respectively, but at the same synthesis conditions their maximum oil absorbency were lower than non-ionic gel’s.Polyelectrolyte gels containing imidazole ionic liquid were synthesized by solution polymerization process, using imidazole tetrafluoroborate([VOIm][BF4]) and acrylates as monomers, neopentyl glycol diacrylate(NPGDA) as crosslinker, AIBN as initiator. The results of orthogonal experiment showed that, crosslinker amount significantly affected the oil-absorbing properties and optimized operation conditions were lauryl methacrylate(LMA): [VOIm][BF4]: NPGDA: AIBN = 95:1:1.5:2(mol%). Compared with non-ionic polymethacrylate gel, the maximum absorbency of polyelectrolyte gel increased by about 10 g·g-1, and even exceeded 17 g·g-1 in dichloromethane by the introduction of weakly coordinating ions.In this paper, with the introduction of weakly coordinating ions of the traditional oilabsorbing polyacrylate gels, different types of weakly coordinating ions were explored, and we found that the absorbency of polyelectrolyte gel with imidazole ionic liquid as monomer had been significantly improved.