Patterns, Shapes and Growth of a Spherical Superabsorvent Polymer

TL;DR

This paper combines experiments and modeling to analyze the pattern formation, shape evolution, and growth dynamics of a spherical superabsorbent polymer, revealing a progression from polygonal patterns to a growing sphere.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive study of the morphological evolution and growth behavior of superabsorbent polymers using both experimental data and theoretical modeling.

Findings

Polygonal patterns form initially on the spherical polymer surface.

The shape transitions from wrinkled to oblate ellipsoid before becoming a sphere.

Growth over time follows an exponential pattern derived from the continuity equation.

Abstract

Combining experimental procedures and theoretical modeling, we studied patterns, shapes, and growth of a special type of SuperAbsorbent Polymers (SAP). At the initial stage, embed in water, we have a polygonal pattern over a spherical form, that evolves into a wrinkled deformed shape, which is then followed by an oblate ellipsoid with some of wrinkles over the surface. The final step is a slowly growing sphere. We measured the weights in function of time during the growing process. The results can be represented by an exponential function, which is derived from the general continuity equation.