CHARACTERIZATION OF HYDROGELS FOR DIFFUSION EXPERIMENTS

1 LAŠTŮVKOVÁ Marcela
Co-authors:
1 SMILEK Jiří 1 KLUČÁKOVÁ Martina 1 SEDLÁČEK Petr
Institution:
1 Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Materials Research Centre, Purkyňova 118, 612 00 Brno, Czech Republic, EU
Conference:
7th International Conference on Nanomaterials - Research & Application, Hotel Voronez I, Brno, Czech Republic, EU, October 14th - 16th 2015
Proceedings:
Proceedings 7th International Conference on Nanomaterials - Research & Application
Pages:
342-347
ISBN:
978-80-87294-59-8
ISSN:
2694-930X
Published:
11th January 2016
Proceedings of the conference were published in Web of Science and Scopus.
Metrics:
389 views / 167 downloads
Abstract

Our research is focused on foliar fertilizers and their impacts on plant grow. These experiments are realized in agarose hydrogels (blank agarose hydrogels and agarose hydrogel with addition of potassium lignohumate). Used materials (hydrogels and isolated plant cuticles) were characterized by basic physical chemical instrumentations (rheology, scanning electron microscopy, mercury intrusion porosimetry and stereomicroscopy). Mentioned methods are able to characterize behavior of hydrogels. Rheology enables to determine the mechanical properties of hydrogels. Hydrogel materials must be modified for some trials; otherwise it wouldn’t possible to measure it. Lyophilisation was used for modification of hydrogel, because dry hydrogels (xerogels) are more appropriate for aforementioned instruments. Scanning electron microscopy and stereomicroscopy were used to determine the surface of hydrogels. Mercury intrusion porosimetry was used for determination of hydrogels pores for both types. It was considered, from obtained experimental data, that this material doesn’t significantly affect the diffusion processes.

Keywords: Hydrogels; agarose; potassium lignohumate; lyophilisation

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