Abstract
The swelling and stress-elongation experiments have been performed for two kinds of gels of tactic poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (P-HEMA) with varying crosslinker concentrations. The gels of isotactic and syndiotactic P-HEMA were swollen in aqueous salt solutions upon varying molal concentrations. The solute used were NaCl, $MgCl_2$, $Na_2SO_4$, $MgSO_4$ and urea. The water content at equilibrium swelling and the salt partition coefficient were determined, and stress-elongation curves of the gels were obtained. From these results, the effective number of chain (${\nu}_e$) and the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter (${\chi}_1$) were also obtained. The swelling experiment was also performed under varying solvents, and the degree of swelling was determined. The solubility parameter of P-HEMA was obtained as 13.4 (cal/mole)$^{l/2}$ using the correlation between the degree of swelling and the solubility parameter (${\delta}_1$) of solvents. The mechanical properties of syndiotactic P-HEMA is stronger than that of isotactic P-HEMA, and the water content of both gels become smaller when the crosslinking increases. Isotactic P-HEMA contains more water content than syndiotactic P-HEMA does.