Green chemistry approach for preparation of hydrogels for agriculture applications through modification of natural polymers and investigating their swelling properties

Two sets of hydrogel materials based on guar gum were prepared by grafting guar gum onto acrylic acid/acrylamide and acrylic acid/N-isopropylacrylamide copolymers by using persulphate radical as an initiator and N,N′ methylenebisacrylamide as a cross linker. The prepared hydrogels were denoted as AA-AcM-GG and AA-NIPAM-GG respectively. They were characterized by FTIR Spectroscopy and SEM. The effect of some composition variables on the swelling performance of PA-GG hydrogel was thoroughly studied. Furthermore, swelling behavior was monitored as a function of temperature and electrolyte concentration. A lab experiment was carried out in order to investigate the effect of the optimum hydrogels on the growth of guava plant. Keywords: Guar gum, Acrylate, N-isopropyl acryl amide, Green hydrogels, Temperature sensitive, Salt sensitiv