Studies on superabsorbents modified with trehalose

Recently, trehalose becomes more and more popular compound. Increasing interest in this disaccharide results from the role as it starts to play in water economy of plants. In conditions of water shortage mentioned organic substance prevents their dehydration. Therefore, application of such interesting additive can contribute to the preparation of materials that can be applied in such areas as agriculture or cultivation of plants. It is also worth mentioning that properties of trehalose make this substance interesting from the medical point of view. Presented additive can have an impact on maintaining organs for transplantation in good condition. In presented research series of polymer superabsorbents modified with described disaccharide have been prepared. Obtained by means of photopolymerization materials differed in an amount of the additive. In the further step, physicochemical properties of superabsorbents have been determined. Following studies have been carried out: swelling studies and incubation studies in simulated body fluids aimed at determination of behavior of prepared materials in solutions similar to those one occurring in human body. Additionally, chemical structure of the hydrogels have been defined using spectroscopic technique. Based on the research it can be concluded that proposed materials are characterized by low sorption capacity and did not have significant impact on simulated body fluids. What is more, prepared hydrogels did not degrade significantly in the mentioned fluids - such conclusion is possible due to the fact that spectra of the tested materials before and after incubation studies obtained using FT-IR spectroscopy differed slightly from each other. Presented superabsorbents seem to be interesting materials that can be subjected to more advanced studies in view of their future medical application.