Abstract
Super water absorbents were prepared by graft copolymerization of acrylamide(AM) monomer onto the low cyanoethylated wood pulp(LCE-WP) having degree of substitution(D.S.) 0.13, 0.35 and 0.63 followed by alkaline hydrolysis. The copolymerization rate of AM onto the LCE-WP of D.S. 0.13 and D.S. 0.35 were similar, while the LCE-WP of D.S. 0.63 showed faster copolymerization rate than the other two LCE-WPs. The degree of hydrolysis of super water absorbents was in the range of 60-85%. H-LCE-WP-g-PAM obtained by alkaline hydrolysis of the grafted LCE-WPs showed higher absorbency than that of WP. The H-LCE-WP-g-PAM prepared from the LCE-WP of D.S. 0.35 having graft yield of 290% exhibited the largest absorbencies of 5400 g/g for water and 75 g/g for 0.9% NaCl solution, respectively. Their absorbencies were about twice as much as those of the super water absorbent from WP.