A pH sensitive ternary copolymer gel was synthesized in the presence of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a crosslinking agent through radical polymerization of vinyl acetate (VA), acrylic acid (AA) and methyl acrylate (MA) with a weight ratio of 1：1.3：1. A number of experiments were carried out to determine the swelling behavior of the gel under a variety of pH conditions of the swelling medium. As the pH of the swelling medium was changed from 1.0 to 8.0 at 37 ℃, the gel showed a shift in the pH-dependent swelling behavior from Fickian (n=0.3447) to non-Fickian (n=0.9125). The resulting swelling parameters were analyzed using graphical and statistical methods. The results showed that the swelling of the gel was controlled by the pH of the medium, i.e. n＝noexp(SCpH), where n is the diffusion exponent, no(＝28.9645×10-2) is the preexponential factor and SC(＝0.1417) is pH sensitivity coefficient. The swelling behavior of the gel was also examined in aliphatic alcohols. The results showed that the rate of swelling increased with increasing number of carbon atoms in the alcoholic molecular chain.

Keywords: ternary copolymer; swelling kinetics; pH-sensitive gel; aliphatic alcohols