Morphology, Absorptivity and Viscoelastic Properties of Mineralized PVP-CMC Hydrogel

A simple liquid diffusion mineralization technique was applied for the incorporation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in PVP-CMC hydrogel. The hydrogel was prepared 6.5 mm thick to achieve around 1 mm thick sample after mineralization of hydrogel matrix with calcite. The calcite crystals were round shaped and organized as building blocks inside the porous three dimensional cross linked structure of the PVP-CMC hydrogel. The present study was designed to evaluate the properties of mineralized (calcite) hydrogel with respect to freshly prepared hydrogel and those swelled in water (H2O) after drying. The viscoelastic properties of swelled and mineralized samples were reported though the dry PVP-CMC hydrogel were swelled and mineralized with calcite until 150 min. It is observed that there is not much difference in elastic property of fresh and 60 min mineralized hydrogels but the values of elastic property are decreased in the case of swelled hydrogels. It is interesting that in case of swelled samples the values of complex viscosity (eta*) are increased with the increase of swelling time after 90 min but in case of calcite hydrogel the values (eta*) are gradually decreased with the increase of time.