Liquid flow through polymer gels

Abstract

Slow neutron transmission technique was applied to investigate features of the solvent flow through quasi-porous matrices of gelatin, poly (acrylamide) and silica gels of different concentration/mesh sizes. We find the macromolecular friction coefficient for all gels to be proportional to the concentration of polymer network which correlates well with the predictions of the effective medium approach under the condition of negligible impact of hydrodynamic self-interactions. Determined values of the friction coefficient are used for evaluating the effective mesh sizes, which are in good agreement with the appropriate results of quasi-elastic light scattering for homogeneous poly (acrylamide) gels.