Surfactant-assisted synthesis of a transparent ionic nanocomposite hydrogel

It was a challenge to prepare ionic nanocomposite hydrogels, because of the precipitation of the ionic monomer and clay complexes. In this work, a transparent ionic nanocomposite hydrogel cross-linked by Laponite XLG was successfully synthesized via the in-situ free radical polymerization of ionic monomer acrylic acid (AA) with assistance of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The addition of SDS can successfully avoid the aggregation of Laponite in the ionic monomer AA. It was a new approach to obtain ionic nanocomposite hydrogels with high transparency. The transparency of the hydrogel was changed reversibly with the temperature alternate changing. The elongation at break of the hydrogels was 2000% and the ultimate tensile strength was about 162 kPa. The facile method is important to the fabrication and potential applications of nanocomposite hydrogels.