Water sorption in poly(ammonium sulfopropylbetaines). II. Sorption isotherms

Water sorption by four amorphous acrylic and methacrylic poly(zwitterions) bearing ammonium sulfopropylbetaine side groups () was studied at a constant temperature of 23°C and over a broad range of water activity (0.14-0.90). Whatever the physical state of the hydrated polymer, glassy or viscoelastic, water diffusion is Fickian (average diffusion coefficient Ds in the range 2-16 × 10−8 cm2 s−1), and the sorption isotherms may be quantitatively analyzed according to the Guggenheim-Anderson-De Boer amended BET equation for multilayer sorption processes. The number of sitebound water molecules per monomeric unit is in the range 1.5–2.0, and apparently there is no great energy difference between direct site binding and indirect binding in the successive solvation layers. The polymer-water interaction parameter (−0.6 < χ Flory < 0.6) is an increasing function of the water content of the hydrated poly(zwitterions) over the whole composition range (water volume fraction < 0.5), without any clear transition from the glassy to the viscoelastic state. Clustering of water molecules (Zimm-Lundberg theory) is never observed, even at high water content. Because of the charged structure of their dipolar units, the poly(zwitterions) show a water sorption process similar to that of the corresponding poly(electrolytes) of the tetra-alkylammonium sulfonate type. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.