Size dependence of polymer composition in the surface layer of poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) hydrogel microspheres

Poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) hydrogel microspheres of four different average sizes were prepared using a membrane emulsification technique. These four kinds of microspheres had average diameters of 1.35, 2.33, 3.09, and 7.43 mu m in distilled water and were all fairly monodisperse. Their surface properties were studied by measuring the electrophoretic mobility of the microspheres. The mobility values were negative at pH 7.4 with the ionic strengths between 0.005 and 0.154 at 25 degrees C. More negative mobility values were obtained with smaller microspheres than the larger ones. By analyzing the data with an electrokinetic theory for "soft" surfaces, it was found that smaller microspheres have higher surface charge density than the larger ones, although all kinds of microspheres were prepared from monomer solutions with the same monomer composition. The observed size dependence of the electrophoretic mobility suggests that copolymerization of acrylamide monomers and acrylic acid monomers does not proceed homogeneously within a microsphere. That is, charged acrylic acid monomers have a tendency to be localized in the microsphere core region, whereby the surface region of microspheres becomes poor in charges, reducing the mobility of larger microspheres. This is not the case for smaller microspheres, so that their mobility becomes more negative. (C) 1998 Academic Press.